Weaselling
by PresidentStalkeyes
Summary: Duke Weaselton's ma always told him that if you're going to weasel through life, do it properly; a lesson he learns the hard way when he winds up indebted to a violent crime lord. Forced to reunite an old crew and give quick cash another try, he soon finds himself caught between an overzealous detective, a shady real estate tycoon, two ambitious thugs and a nasty honey badger.
1. The Duke Of Hazards

_**The Duke Of Hazards**_

They say that whatever happens in Sahara Square, stays in Sahara Square. Primarily because the place is so hot, even at night. The city of Zootopia had the testament to engineering that was the climate wall to thank for that. So when you go there, your blood boils and you feel an insatiable urge to act out, be passionate, do things you would never even consider doing in more sensible temperatures. Almost like a state of intoxication.

This was readily apparent at this time of evening; the streets, wide as they were, were filled with gamblers and clubbers in colourful attire and of all shapes and sizes, shuffling along in crowds or even spilling out onto the road if they had drunk too much. The sound of horns and screeching tires from motorists protesting the aforementioned spillages were not uncommon. This particular part of Sahara Square was to the west of the Oasis Circle, as it was known, where the famous Palm Hotel and Casino was located. The streets in this area formed the crevasses between artificial canyons, with buildings artfully carved into the sides like someone had been making wave paintings or honeycombs out of layered rocks. Down here, the place was so brightly lit in the evening that it was impossible to forget that you were in Sahara Square.

Yet in the midst of all this, there was one mammal who seemed strictly focused on his own business. A slender, brown-furred mink with a patch of white fur on the end of his snout, a pair of slim glasses and a tuft of well-kept fur on his head. He was dressed in a sober black suit, the only splash of colour being a golden tie; a far cry from the norm at this time and place. He currently sat at an intermediate-size table under a shining canvas shelter outside The Dunes, which fancied itself one of the more upmarket bars and restaurants in the area.

The mink's 'own business' at this moment in time was the fairly large glass of ice-cold orange juice, but as he was about to drink some, his phone – placed next to it – began to vibrate.

"Hello, is this Antonov?" the mink asked whoever it was on the other side in a high-pitched voice, speaking with a distinctly foreign accent. He soon found himself frowning. "I'll take that as a no. So, what are you selling? Please, do tell!" He asked, leaning back and putting on a smile. "No, I insist! I like to give sporting chance to any business. See if they're worth my time. Plus, keeps you in job."

As the telemarketer on the other end began his spiel, the mink began to drink some of his orange juice. "Mm… so, it's revolutionary piece of exercise equipment for extra-large offices? Interesting!"

As this was going on, another mammal watched intently from across the street. Hiding behind an elephant-sized pot cactus, a weasel in a grungy tank top and tracksuit trousers eyed the mink, and then he eyed the car that he assumed belonged to him, parked on the road just outside The Dune. It was a shiny, mustelid-sized sports coupe, painted simple silver. Presumably of Tanukyese make, by his estimation. Duke Weaselton chuckled, rubbing his paws together. The perfect mark. All he'd need was a distraction… and he had one.

* * *

About fifteen minutes later, the mink at the table had finished his glass of orange juice but was _still_ chatting away to the telemarketer, now having evidently moved on to discuss things not strictly related to the sale. "…See, if some of my employees had exercise equipment like this, then perhaps they'd learn to calm down, and show more respect to authorities when chips come down! …Oh, I'm told it's a gambling analogy. Surprising how often that comes up in this business!"

Meanwhile, just down the street, a third mammal came into the picture. An elderly, gangly female goat, dressed in the distinct, high-visibility attire of a ZPD traffic cop. Or 'meter maids' as they were popularly known. As she strolled along with her walker – with two tennis balls attached to the bottom, for some reason – the much younger, hipper and/or less authority-inclined mammals that frequented this part of town threw suspicious glances her way, what with meter maids being considered the embodiment of all evil. But the old goat paid them no mind, instead remaining focused on her job of nearly fifty years.

Sauntering at a snail's pace, she soon came upon the Tanukyese sports car, so shiny it was that not even she could ignore it. More importantly, it was parked in a very high-demand place, so she knew the local restrictions would be very harsh indeed. She stopped to analyse the nearest parking meter. Squinting to focus her tired old eyes at it, she could see it had turned bright red. Of course; the sort of young hooligan that would drive a car such as this would pay no mind to even the most basic parking limits.

By now, the stream of clubbers and gamblers had cleared a bit, offering the mink outside The Dune an unobstructed view of his car for the first time in a while.

"So they're made using locally-sourced plastics? Is good to hear; speaking as an immigrant – and mustelid, at that – I insist on supporting local economy! …Hmm? Oh, Bearuska. Yes, just after fall of the wall. …It _is_ rather shameful that some mammals hold these prejudices, but… well, it is instinct problem, really. I was no different as a… excuse me one moment."

The mink's spectacled eyes widened as he noticed the elderly meter maid just across the street, about to slap a parking ticket on his automobile. He raised a brow. That couldn't be right…

"Listen, I have to take care of some… uh, business. However, I have saved your number, and will continue this conversation later so I can place an order! Good luck with your sales!"

Wasting no time, he put away his phone and got up from his chair. He had to walk at a slightly quickened pace to cover the distance needed, since all the major streets in the city had to be scaled-up to at least elephant size, and the surrounding architecture tended to reflect that. But he kept his composure even as he pitter-pattered along, timing his crossing of the wide road well to accommodate the heavy traffic.

By the time he had reached the other side, the old meter maid had already stuck a ticket under his car's windscreen wiper and moved on to look for more 'targets'. However, her walking pace was sufficiently slow enough that the mink didn't have to walk very far to catch up with her.

"Excuse me, officer!" he called out, prompting her to very, very slowly stop and very, very slowly turn around, taking her about ten seconds in all. The mink could practically hear her old bones creaking as she did so. "I believe there's been mistake with my car."

The old goat narrowed her eyes at him, pointing with a hoof. "I'm afraid… there's been no mistake, son. See the meter? Red! That means… expired!" she emphasised like she was talking to an idiot, even miming an explosion when she got to 'expired'. The mink's mind was blown, certainly, but not in the way she wanted him to be.

He briefly rolled his eyes before standing up straight politely clasping his paws in front of his chest, almost like he was pleading. "I am well aware of that, officer! But I assure you, I double-check parking limits on this street; I read up on local language before moving here. It was for one hour only. I have only been here thirty minute," he said, playing up his Bearuskan accent; it often tended to provoke simpler, easier-to-understand explanations from the locals, he knew.

"Now, you listen to me, Ivan!" the old goat began, shaking a hoofy fist at him, "I've ticketed cars on this street for nearly fifty years, I think I know when these meters expire! Been like that for nearly fifty years; you got a problem with that, take it up with your grandpappy who voted on proposition whasname fifty years ago to make it that way; otherwise, you pay the ticket like everyone else has been for nearly fifty years!"

The mink furrowed his brow in confusion; she was certainly very big on the 'fifty years' angle. "My name is actually Dmitry, buuut… close enough!" he shrugged. "Anyhow, if my parking has expired already, how come horse in sedan behind me is still parked, ticketless, after forty minute or so?"

"Ohh, playin' the species card, are ya? Don't give me that, Ivan; for nearly fifty years, every mammal who comes 'ere has to abide by the same parking laws, for nearly fifty years! So it doesn't matter if you're a ferret…"

"Mink," Dmitry interrupted.

"Oh, whatever!" the meter maid snapped back, craning her head as far as her old back would allow to get her face right in his. "It doesn't matter if you're a mink, or a horse, or a mink riding a horse, you can't stay parked here longer than fifty year- I mean, one hour!"

"But I have not been parked here for one hour! Only thirty minute!" Dmitry responded in kind, beginning to lose his temper.

What neither of them realised, however, was the weasel watching the entire encounter from behind the same cactus, waiting for their confusion to fully set in. Duke slowly began to sidle his way out of his hiding spot as he noticed that the old meter maid was beginning to… _slowly_ … turn to face the nearest parking meter. With how senile she was, he was starting to wonder why he even bothered hiding in the first place as long as Dmitry's back was turned.

"Don't get impatient with me, Ivan!" the old meter maid said, pointing at the meter. "Look at the meter! Red as a tomato that's been used to beat someone to death with!"

"…W-what?" Dmitry stuttered out, before shaking his head to erase the odd comparison from his memory. He proceeded to get up close to the meter, tapping straight on it. "Anyway, look closely. The 'red' is obviously cheap marker pen. Not even dry!" he emphasised, holding up a finger to display the red mark that had been left on it.

Responding, the old goat… _gradually_ … slowly, but _surely_ … inched her way over to the meter, craned her neck at it, and squinted as hard as she could. She looked at Dmitry's reddened finger, then back to the meter, then back to the finger, then back to the meter. Something clearly wasn't right here, but she couldn't put her hoof on it… anything red just looked solid red through her blurry vision.

Dmitry sighed. "Use glasses if need be," he said, helpfully offering the use of his mustelid-size spectacles. The old goat gave a silent nod in thanks and delicately took the undersized glasses, pinching them within her hooves, held them up to her face, and shut one eye to squint through them with the other. As she focused her vision, it soon became apparent that, to her amazement, the mink was right; the 'red' on the parking meter was crudely drawn on in marker, and it wasn't even entirely consistent, with plenty of gaps. They hadn't even bothered to write 'EXPIRED' on it; talk about poorly-researched.

By this point, Duke had closed in on the mink, arching his back in an almost cartoonish fashion as his pockets came within reach of his sticky claws; he was half-tempted to turn to some imaginary camera and make a 'shhhh' gesture to an imaginary audience. The old goat soon found herself coughing in astonishment as the mink's theory was proven right, giving the weasel his cue to strike. As they were both caught off guard, he lightly, but swiftly reached into Dmitry's back pocket and, gentle as a feather, clutched his car keys and slid them out. And when the goat decided to cough again, he figured he might as well take Dmitry's wallet as well. From his experience, most mammals he'd pickpocket would suddenly feel the emptiness in their clothes after some time; could be seconds, could be minutes. So it was imperative that he quickly stuff the goods in his own pockets and casually walk away, as if he'd just been passing by.

And to even his amazement, it seemed to work! To enhance the illusion, he sauntered a ways down the street to avoid suspicion. It was about six seconds after the deed had been done that Dmitry began to feel 'the emptiness'. It wasn't a conclusive sign they'd been pickpocketed, just some instinctual urge to look behind oneself. By then, Duke was at least three cars away. In his line of work, you had to walk fast.

"Oh, consarnit… I am so sorry, Ivan… Dmitry… whatever it was," the old goat said, delicately handing his glasses back to him. "I shoulda known some darned hooligans would try and take advantage of my tired old brain! Been like this for-"

"Nearly fifty years?" Dmitry interrupted, turning back to her.

"…Yes! How did you know?"

"Never mind. Question is, who is responsible for vandalism? They probably try to distract us while… wait…"

It was _now_ that Dmitry began to start patting down his suit pockets, finally realising that he'd been had. He turned back again to catch another glimpse of the dirty weasel he saw, but by then Duke had disappeared. He had moved on to phase three of his scheme; circle around to the other side of the row of cars, skitter along on all fours to avoid detection, and upon coming back to the target car, execute a little stunt. The 'Ratalian Invasion', he called it.

It was simple… on paper, anyway. Most cars nowadays didn't require you to physically insert the key into the lock; all you needed was to push a button, which made life much easier for the enterprising car thief. All the weasel needed to do was hit that button, pull himself inside, execute a 180-degree 'stoat turn', shut the door behind him, and hit it again to lock himself in – and the owner out – all in three seconds. He grinned to himself in confidence; he'd been practicing with his cousin's van. This time, he was sure he'd be able to pull it off.

"Don't you worry yourself, Ivan! I may look like an old meter maid… and I am! But I'm still a proud officer of the Zootopia Police Department, and in nearly fifty years, not once has any no-good crook escaped my notice! You can rest assured that your belongings are-"

Beep, clunk, shuffle, clunk, vroom vroom, tire squeal. And before either of them even knew it, Dmitry's car had literally left them in a cloud of smoke as it sped off down the street.

"…Safe with us."

Dmitry's paw slammed against his forehead. "Never mind, I take care of this myself. Perhaps it is time for retirement, Officer…?"

"Mabel!"

* * *

"Pfthahahaha!" Duke laughed to himself as he weaved through the evening Sahara Square traffic. "I _love it_ when a plan comes together!" However, the overjoyed expression on his face mellowed a bit when something rather irritating came to his mind. "…Ugh, right, o' course. Ma will probably wanna know about this…"

Thus, he proceeded to blatantly violate a basic driving principle by pulling out his phone, only paying about a third of the attention to the road he was supposed to, and calling up a certain guardian. As he waited for her to pick up, he approached the incredibly busy Oasis Circle itself, the Palm Hotel in full view.

"Come on, come on, pick up! If yer always askin' for the money, least y'can do is set up a garage or somethin'…" he muttered to himself as he jerked all over the place to avoid a practical fleet of much smaller, rodent-sized cars on the way to the Circle.

Unfortunately, however, as a consequence of losing two-thirds of his attention, he somehow managed to miss the enormous coach directly in front of him until the very last second.

"GYAH!" he went, as was custom, when he finally saw the massive white, metallic monstrosity in front of him. He was forced to abruptly jerk the car off to the right, causing the phone to fall out of his paw and into the driver's footwell.

"Oh, for the love of- why must this always happen every time I go for a drive?!" he moaned to himself as he ducked down to retrieve the phone, thus reducing his visibility from 33% to 0%. And if that wasn't enough, the extra pressure he applied pulling himself down there forced him to accelerate quite vigorously. It was only a matter of time before something went badly wrong.

* * *

 _ **Five Minutes Earlier…**_

Night was beginning to fall at the Oasis Circle. What with all the clubbers, the gamblers and the drunkards migrating around the Palm Hotel, you'd think that the Zootopia Police Department would have no shortage of work to do. And yet, here at one of the main roads leading into the Circle, an enormous ZPD-livery SUV remained dormant at the sidewalk. Its occupants – an older rhinoceros in the driver's seat, and a younger timber wolf on a booster seat next to him – spending their taxpayer-issued time slouched in their chairs, licking away at ice cream cones and generally looking bored.

But then, the silence was broken by a sudden, energetic gesture from the wolf; the label on his uniform identifying him as an Officer Wolford.

"SO! Ya got any jokes?" he asked in a voice surprisingly nasally for a wolf.

"Well, it depends." The rhino, an Officer McHorn, responded in a deep voice. "What kinda jokes we talkin' about?"

"Well, y'know. Funny ones! I mean, it's not like we got anythin' better to talk about!"

"That's very true, but I kinda already assumed you meant funny ones; unfunny jokes ain't exactly jokes. They'd more accurately be called 'torture'."

"Well, _alright_ , Mister Comedy-ologist! I mean like… puns, wordplay, double entendres, that sorta thing!"

McHorn paused for a moment, scratching his horn. "…Nah, I ain't real good at that. I'm more into anecdotes. What, 'ave you got somethin'?"

"I have, actually! I heard it at the DMV the other day." Wolford proudly announced, turning in his booster seat slightly to enable better gestures. He cleared his throat.

"Whaddya call a three-humped camel?"

"Uh... Dromedary or Bactrian?"

"What?" Wolford asked, his face screwed up in bafflement.

"What kinda camel? Dromedary or Bactrian?"

"Well..." Wolford paused to think it over, "how the freakin' hell should I know?! Which one's the most common?"

McHorn shrugged. "Dromedary, I think."

"Okay, fine," the wolf conceded, clearing his throat again. "Whaddya call a three-humped _Dromedary_ camel?"

"A mutant?"

Wolford paused again to let the build-up properly sink in, as any good comedian should remember to do. Or so he thought.

" _Pregnant!_ Pfhehehehe!" he chuckled, lightly punching the much bigger mammal on the shoulder.

But the bigger mammal only reacted with a furrowed brow. "...I don't get it."

"Huh?" Wolford stopped smirking. "Why not?"

"Well... you said a Dromedary camel, right?"

"Yeah, so? What difference does that make?"

McHorn fidgeted a bit in preparation for a lecture. "Well, Dromedaries have only got _one_ hump. I'm guessing the second hump is from her being pregnant and all, but where's the third hump comin' from?"

Wolford spluttered out some jumbled noises, having trouble forming words for a moment. "I… j… What?! I dunno, I didn't know there was a difference! This camel I'm talkin' about had _two_ humps!"

"But you said she was a Dromedary. Bactrians are the ones with two humps."

Wolford briefly smacked his head against the dashboard before rising; making sure to hold his ice cream up, of course. "I only said that 'cause you asked! Look, no-one else is gonna ask what kinda camel, she's just a camel! Who cares?!"

"Oh, she's 'just a camel'?" McHorn snorted. "That's pretty speciesist of ya, Dennis."

"Hey, don't be an ass, you know that's not what I meant! Look, the kind of camel ain't important!"

"I dunno, the _number of humps_ is a pretty crucial difference, as far as the joke's concerned. Besides, you asked for what the most common type o' camel is, not which one has two humps and which one don't. Dromedaries are the most common, so it stands to reason that most mammals are gonna think o' them when you just randomly say 'a camel'."

"No they won't!" Wolford raised his voice, stopping briefly to make sure his ice cream hadn't melted. "Look, I ain't bein' a speciesist, I'm just sayin' that most mammals ain't realistically gonna care! You say a 'three-humped camel', they're gonna assume you're talkin' about a two-humped camel that's got an extra hump, 'cause mammals ain't as stupid as you think! They know that two-humped camels exist, and three-humped camels don't!"

McHorn bit down on his entire ice cream minus the very bottom of the cone, and began to talk with his mouth full. "Firsht of all, I don't think everyone but me ish an idiot. Shecond, what if they're like me and they want a little extra clarification?"

"Yeah, well you're just…" Wolford wiggled his fingers in front of his face, "…different! I've told that joke to at least a dozen guys, and literally none of 'em asked what kind o' camel except you!"

McHorn quickly consumed the last of his cone, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "Look, I'm just sayin', it'd be better if you said a _Bactrian_ camel instead of just 'a camel' precisely to avoid this kinda confusion!"

"There _was_ no confusion until you decided to- okay, to hell with it, I'll start again!" Wolford cleared his throat for a third time. "What do you call a three-humped _Bactrian_ camel?"

"I don't know."

"Pregnant! Ha ha ha, hilarious!" Wolford said disingenuously.

"Well… no, not really."

Wolford grunted, throwing his free paw in the air. "That's because you ruined the damn thing by overcomplicating it! Besides, it ain't just about _that_ kinda hump, anyway! There's a whole second side to the joke, and when you figure it out..."

McHorn held up an enormous hand. "Uhh-bub-bub! Say no more, I get it!"

"Geez, Vic… why have you gotta be so uptight, anyhow?"

"What?! Where'd that come from? Why am I suddenly 'uptight' just 'cause I don't find crass jokes funny? We can't all be 'lone wolves' like you, Dennis; I chose to get settle down, get married an' have twin calves! Knock it all you like, but that don't make me uptight!"

"Well yeah, but I swear you in particular always act like there could be pups literally in the back o' the car! Y'don't _always_ have to play the good daddy; sit back an' relax every once in a while! Besides, even if there _were_ pups, I'm sure they'd find the idea of a pregnant, three-humped camel funny!"

"Oh, so the _three-_ humped camel is pregnant, now? Does that make it a _four-_ humped camel?"

Wolford proceeded to smash his head on the dashboard again. Three times. In rapid succession. "Okay, you're doin' this on purpose now, ain't ya? You're tryin' to wind me up, ain't ya?"

"Well, maybe… but I didn't start it."

" _Grrrrrrrrr…_ " Wolford began to growl in a distinctly canine manner.

However, before their little argument could escalate even further, both their attentions were immediately drawn to the deafeningly loud shriek of a high-performance, Tanukyese-engineered engine rapidly approaching their position. Their looks practically 'snapping' to the source of the noise, they saw some kind of silver blur coming their way at blinding speed, and haphazardly swerving about the road on top of that. It was a minor miracle he hadn't hit anything. Looked like the officers would get some action after all.

"Let's roll." Was all McHorn said as he switched on the SUV's deeper sirens, started the monster, spun its wheels and sped off, heading straight to the Circle.

"Woah, woah, woah, lemme finish my freakin' ice cream, first!" Wolford pleaded before biting down on the near-entirety of his cone like McHorn did earlier, albeit with much less success. "GAAGGGHHH… brain freeze!" he growled out, clutching his skull in agony.

* * *

"This is the Police! You are in violation of multiple traffic laws! Pull your vehicle over right now!"

Duke's attention was brought back to the road as he heard that sadly familiar line over loudspeaker, combined with the sound of blaring sirens and the sight of flashing lights quickly emerging behind him. Unfortunately, the moment he chose to forget his dropped phone and rise back to a proper driving position coincided with the moment his new car veered onto the grassy separator between the two sides of the road on the Circle.

He yelped in surprise as he struggled to get the car back under control, barrelling as it was straight through ornamental bushes, getting covered in dust, and knocking Duke all over the inside of the car like he was a pinball because, of course, he'd forgotten to put his seatbelt on.

But that was only the beginning of his troubles. Once he finally emerged from the grassy knoll – going over the curb with an alarming bump – he found himself driving straight towards oncoming traffic.

"Oh… damn! Damn damn damn _damn_!" he blurted out. His face contorted into a twitching mess and his body not doing much better, he began to panic and frantically steer towards the nearest large-mammal vehicle; with a bit of luck, the ride would be high enough to let him drive straight underneath it. Narrowly dodging a convoy of mouse-sized taxis with a clumsily-executed slalom, he soon spotted a _monster_ monster truck; the monster truck for bears and pachyderms.

"Holy… thank God I'm in Sahara Square!" Duke yelled, because only here would you find a vehicle so… unorthodox casually driving through an urban area. Of course, like any urban area, his driving habits were causing mammals driving towards him to abruptly stop and sound their horns, no doubt causing an accident or two. But that was the city's problem, as far as Duke was concerned right now.

Unfortunately, as he approached the monster truck, not only did the driver – some kind of bear hillbilly – sound the truck's equally monstrous horn to try and spook him, a local rabbit soccer mom in a minivan full of her kits, having been blocked off by some of the traffic Duke had halted, had the exact same idea as Duke and drove underneath the truck. Of course, Duke didn't notice the minivan until he was already sailing full-pelt towards it, forcing him to summon every last bit of driving expertise he had to avoid a horrendous accident.

"If this don't work, I am _literally_ gonna kill my fake drivin' instructor!" he declared before attempting the feat in question. He steered sharp right and applied the brakes as hard as his uncovered weasel feet could accomplish, sending the car into a drift, its back end right in the path of the minivan. He then steered sharp left, sending the back of the car swerving in the other direction, narrowly missing the minivan.

"That's two rabbits now! _Two rabbits_!" he breathlessly screamed out as he turned sharp right again, so his car wouldn't get crushed underneath the oversized wheels of the monster monster truck. Once he was underneath it, he spotted a gap in the traffic to his right that would enable him to get back on track, and without thinking on it, floored the accelerator.

Luck would not be so kind to him, however, and before he could get back to the grass, an opossum on a pizza delivery bike suddenly drove straight into his path and stopped in a panic. His eyes bulging out in even more panic, Duke was forced to make yet another last-second course correction, pushing hard on the brakes and drifting back to his left… which left him face-on with a Tundratown truck. He knew as much from the snowplough mounted on the front. At this point, the car was lurching about at such high speed that getting it to stop in time would be impossible.

Duke gulped and closed his eyes. When his ma told him he should get more air, this was _not_ what he had in mind.

The car soon drove straight up the right side of the plough like it was an unfinished loop-de-loop, sending the car hurtling upside-down off to the right, like an oversized bullet. Falling out the driver's seat and bashing against the roof, Duke opened his eyes and screamed.

In reality, his upside-down flight was barely a second long, but for a moment it felt as though he was flying in slow motion. He hurtled straight past the pursuing officers in their ZPD truck, briefly making eye contact with Wolford and McHorn… which was enough to distract him from the side of the big limo he was gliding towards.

The aquatic-mammal limo. Full of water.

The bullet comparison could only be strengthened as the car smashed right through the window, maintaining enough momentum to sail straight through the water, past some very shocked sea lions, and straight out the other end, turning the aquarium on wheels into an ordinary – but very damp – limousine.

What Duke didn't quite notice – understandably, given the screaming and the head injury – was that his car had been doing a corkscrew in mid-air. Luck had come back to him in a slightly twisted way, for his car was now perfectly aligned to land. On two wheels. Duke managed to get the car on all four wheels again by leaning hard to his right, a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that he was now sweaty, had taken a blow to the head and was on the verge of a having a heart attack. Nonetheless, soon the car was back on four wheels and he was heading off the Circle, down a less-busy side street.

Meanwhile, in the ZPD truck, McHorn followed police driving procedure and slammed his hoof on the brake to enable a safe turning, but what he didn't realise was that the road was now covered in water dumped from the aquarium on wheels, forcing him to rapidly spin the steering wheel back to its former position to regain control. Though braking with enough force to dislodge Wolford's booster seat and send him dropping to 0% exterior visibility, the slick road made actually stopping a difficult task. It was only when they crashed into the back of the now-empty water limo that they finally stopped sliding along the road.

All manner of noises ensued. Wolford grunted in pain from the seatbelt digging into his ribcage, though a preferable alternative to being launched out the windscreen. Behind them, a small mass of cars screeched to a collective halt to avoid colliding with them, themselves getting caught off-guard by the slick road, slipping and sliding and soon crashing into one another.

Before he'd properly recovered, Wolford opened the passenger door to get out and check the damage… only for the door itself to be ripped right off its hinges by an out-of-control bus before he could get out, making him jump back with a yelp, clutching his chest.

One rat's muscle car went into a spin, which was only lengthened by a fox in a convertible shunting him from behind. The fox was soon smacked aside as well by a cow in a pickup truck, forming a barricade for an extra-tall giraffe car to swerve and topple over, forming _another_ barricade for a skunk driving a perfume van to crash into, the sound of smashing glass from inside swiftly following.

The pile-up soon settled, but in its wake was a cacophony of blaring horns and bellowed profanities as motorists demanded to know why a traffic jam was rapidly beginning to form around the Circle. Officer McHorn attempted to reverse and get back into the pursuit, but the vehicle wouldn't budge. Officer Wolford, having recovered from his brush with death with courage expected from a canine, decided he would inspect the situation. He dusted himself off, took a deep breath, clambered out the truck, and immediately noticed that they were blocked off by the toppled giraffe car.

"Well, ain't that typical?!"

Meanwhile, Duke had finally got his car back under control and was coasting to the corner at the end of the side-street. He took a moment to congratulate himself on the achievement in sheer dumb luck he had pulled off.

"Whooooo! Adios, donut dippers!" he yelled in delight, even throwing a mock-salute to his rear view mirror just to rub it in even further. He had to ask himself how much money Dmitry must have spent on modifying his car to enable it to drive so well. Not that Duke was going to let himself go without any credit, of course. Even if he _was_ on the verge having an accident the entire time he was in the air; in more ways than one. Offering a brief, silent prayer to his fake driving instructor, he reminded himself that he was not out of the woods quite yet. But he soon would be!

Just ahead of him, he noticed the entrance to a pedestrians-only area; a series of steps leading down to the Oasis Marina, at the top of an artificial reservoir right in the middle of Sahara Square. He shrugged to himself; at this point, the car seemed pretty much unstoppable. What's the worst that could happen?

Instead of slowing down, he accelerated again, effectively causing him to bounce off the three platforms between each flight of stairs, repeatedly launching him out of his seat and making him bash his head against the roof of the car four more times. "OW! OW! OW! OW!" he went before finally returning to solid ground.

Upon reaching the right turn onto the Marina proper, he braked and hugged the corner very closely. However, his repeated blows to the head began to make him feel dazed and slightly queasy, reducing his focus. As a result, he failed to notice the kangaroo standing right there, and accidentally drove over his foot. Duke knew this because he felt a sudden bump, followed by the sound of a kangaroo bellowing in pain, which was enough to make him lucid again.

"Sorry!" he yelled; not that he could be heard, of course. It was more of a reflex thing. Not something he liked to admit.

The Marina road – not a pedestrian-only zone, but merely patterned to resemble one – was a massive, gradual curve outwards and largely devoid of vehicular traffic, giving Duke ample room to floor the accelerator once more. This was good news, because soon a ZPD helicopter emerged from view behind, annoyingly shining a bright light directly into his vision.

"You are under arrest! _Pull over this instant_!" an unseen officer from inside the chopper announced. Not that Duke noticed much, as he was too busy trying to shield his vision from the spotlight, which forced him to take his eyes off the road again. Soon he'd accelerated enough to get away from the light, but by then…

"YAAAGH!" he yelped as his vision returned and he saw what was coming. By that time he'd swerved a little off-course again, and couldn't avoid clipping a table outside a café, causing the table to topple over and spray the car with some kind of tiger's beverage. By this point, he'd ruined quite a lot of mammals' evenings, so he paid it no mind, besides switching on the windscreen wipers to remove the excess beverage.

He slapped himself on the side of the head; he had a real bad attention span problem, he knew. When he got this car sold off, he'd need to spend some of the money to see a shrink, or something.

Meanwhile, some distance down the Marina road, a grizzly bear whose job it was to clean a local souvenir shop was just finishing up his shift. He wandered outside carrying a garbage bag and crossed the road to dump it into a larger trash can. Placing the lid on the trash can, he dusted off his massive paws in relief before walking back to the shop door to lock it up. To heighten his mood, he was wearing earphones which blasted _'Try Everything'_ straight into his ears, rendering him totally oblivious to the incoming weasel.

About halfway across the street, he remembered that the garbage collectors the next morning usually collected straight from the fronts of the shops and would overlook the beachside entirely, so he wandered back to grab the trash can and move it further towards the store, unwittingly clearing the way moments before Duke in his stolen sports car zoomed past, creating a strong gust of wind. Said gust of wind caught the bear's attention and he glanced behind him. Not knowing that he'd barely averted an accident, he shrugged and concluded that it must have been a meteorological anomaly before placing the trash can in front of the store.

As the bear went back to lock the door, Duke finally made his way onto an actual road above the reservoir. He made a cocky grin; this was good news. Or was it?

Just above him, there was another road on a raised section of terrain, the two separated by a wall. The high road soon converged on the low road via a downward hill, and as he drove past it, he witnessed a familiar sight coming from the high road behind him.

Officers McHorn and Wolford were back, having freed themselves from the accident on the strip, and were now gaining on him with alarming speed.

Duke began to panic again. There was no way he'd be able to lose them in a straight-up drag race. He was faster than them, but their truck was no slouch either, _and_ they were bigger. Looking in his rear view mirror, the increasingly-large sight of the truck started to look like a horror movie; the grille even resembled the maw of a vicious beast. Duke began to breathe heavily and clutched his chest, leaning over the steering wheel, desperately trying to think of a plan.

But then he remembered something. He sat up straight. Now they were on narrow, two-lane streets. Surely he'd be able to use his car's smaller size to his advantage. He clicked his claws together and chuckled as he noticed a massive old sedan just ahead of him.

"Keep up with _this_ , Officer… uh… Icin'-berg!" he pointlessly taunted as he overtook the sedan, hugging close to its side to enable smaller vehicles driving towards him to pass, thus making life difficult for the ZPD. He chuckled once more, slapping his knee; looked like he'd be in the clear after all!

However, he soon emerged upon a roundabout arranged in-between three giant ornamental palm trees, right in front of a seaside casino – the Lucky Horseshoe. As Duke continued his overtaking strategy, a somewhat drunken cheetah in a tuxedo stumbled out the front of the casino. Another mammal, a similarly well-dressed hippo, dived in from behind and pushed the cheetah out of the way, spilling a load of oversized poker chips he was hiding inside his jacket all over the road, raining down upon Duke.

A few of the poker chips struck the car's windscreen and fractured it, making Duke jump and dodge in reflex. This was enough to make him jerk the car to the left, exposing the front-right wheel for another poker chip to bounce off the road and get lodged between the wheel and the rest of the car.

The steering was jammed, and Duke, now being forced to turn left, was heading for the brick wall separating him and a sizable body of water.

"GRNNNGH… I… hate… mammals who… cheat at… Poker!" he ranted to himself as he leaned to his right, pulling at the steering wheel with all his strength in an attempt to un-jam the steering. "C'mon, you stupid dried-up piece o' bull dung!"

Almost on cue, he heard a very loud 'SNAP', and suddenly the steering was un-jammed! Unfortunately, the car was now lurching dangerously close to the ground, making a horrific grinding sound and spewing sparks from the offending wheel. Or rather where the wheel _was_ , for it had broken off and was now bouncing back down the road.

Once again, Duke found himself wrestling with the car as it uncontrollably dragged itself towards the wall, as much as he wanted to take his paws off the steering wheel for just one second to protect his ears from the bloodcurdling noise. His increasingly long list of problems was enough to distract him from the heat that was suddenly coming from the top of the car. The extreme heat. The fiery heat, even. The sort of heat you'd get if sparks came into contact with a strong beverage that had you had driven through earlier. And just when he thought it couldn't possibly get any worse…

"S- _stop your vehicle! There's… n-nowhere to run!"_ yelled a rather perturbed police officer over a loudspeaker. A young wildcat from the looks of things, who had serious difficulty sounding authoritative even though he was standing in front of a roadblock of about three ZPD cruisers, completely shutting off any of Duke's escape routes by road. Witnessing a flaming, grinding _thing_ heading straight for you will do that.

"Gah… like _hell_ I'm gonna stop now, kitten!" Duke said, invoking his favourite of all logical fallacies: the sunk cost fallacy. After all, even in its current state, surely he could get the car fixed up; it'd be pricey, to be sure, but a fraction of the money he'd get for the car! All he needed to do was find an alternate route. And as luck would have it, there was one.

Just to his left, there was the entrance to the Sahara Square Country Club, a mass of green terrain on the western 'coast' of the Oasis Reservoir. It was a long shot, but then he remembered that he'd caused a massive pile-up back at the Circle. Compared to the stuff he usually pulled, that was pretty high on the law's list of 'no-nos'.

Relaxing his strong grip on the steering for a bit, he enabled the car's wrecked steering to pull him the wrong way down the exit road from the country club, praising the brief moment of respite he got before he had to continue struggling to turn into the club's parking lot.

Duke's cunning plan had been to drive into the parking lot and then back out the entrance road, bypassing the roadblock. However, he only realised that this would be impossible by the time he was already in the parking lot, and actually turning the car sharp-right at speed was something the car's ruined steering would not permit, at least not without flipping the car over. That's not to say Duke didn't try, though.

Despite applying all the strength his lacklustre weasel body could provide, the car didn't get anywhere close to the entrance road; all he succeeded in doing was driving diagonally across the parking lot, past the country club building itself – shaped like a giant golf cup turned on its side – and found himself skidding across the green, illuminated mostly by the spotlight of the pursuing ZPD chopper.

The green itself was smooth and well-maintained enough for it to not be especially bad on his ride, and it at least stopped the car from grinding sparks against the ground, and it curved to the left across the reservoir, so Duke didn't have to struggle with the steering. However, whatever modifications Dmitry had made to it, he hadn't given it off-road tyres. The ZPD truck soon followed him onto the green and did not encounter the same problem, so it didn't take long for them to catch up to him. However, once they were right on his tail, they encountered a different problem.

"Vic… Vic!" Officer Wolford shouted at his partner; a necessity, since the loss of the passenger door meant he had to make himself heard over the wind coming in. "This thing is too big!"

"What?!" McHorn offhandedly replied, too busy squinting his short-sighted rhino eyes on what was ahead.

"This truck, it's too big!"

" _What_?!"

"I said… this truck… IS TOO BIG! WE CAN'T! SEE! _HIM!_ " Wolford shouted back, gesturing to aid his colleague in understanding what he was saying. "Hang back… and drive alongside! I have an idea!"

"Okay!" McHorn complied, softly applying the brakes and steering to the left, coming up alongside Duke's car. Wolford proceeded to viciously kick open the glovebox in front of him and pulled out a black riot shotgun, clearly designed for a slightly bigger mammal in mind.

"Wolford, is that… really necessary?!"

"YES!" Wolford bluntly replied, loading the shotgun with bright pink shells from inside the glovebox, marked ' _RODENT CONTROL – BEAN BAG ROUND'_.

"I've had! Enough! _Of this freakin' scumbag_!" Wolford confidently declared, pumping the shotgun.

What Duke saw behind him next was almost enough to make him curl up in defence at the wheel, trembling, like he was a kit all over again. The wolf cop used his seatbelt as a safety harness to lean outside the truck while standing up, aiming the oversized shotgun straight at Duke's flaming car. The wolf's teeth were bared and he had slobber practically pouring out his mouth; a side-effect of sticking nearly his whole body outside a moving vehicle, but to Duke it simply made him look like a savage. The fire giving him a bright orange glow in the night certainly didn't help.

"GYAH! Dear _God_!" he yelped at the sight, and responded by leaning further and further into his seat, twitching like he'd been on a coffee binge. "Come on, come on, go faster, go faster…" he muttered, feeling the bones in his feet strain against the accelerator. This didn't make him go faster but at least spewed dirt into Wolford's face, screwing up his aim.

"Stop doin' that!" the wolf yelled as he reflexively batted away the shards of mud flying in his direction. As he was distracted, his itchy trigger finger went off and he shot the front side of their own truck. The shock of the close-range ballistic impact against the truck made McHorn jump in his seat and suddenly jerk the truck sharp left, sending its left wheels into one of the green's bunkers, and Wolford flying back inside the truck, smacking against his partner's arm. "OOF!"

"You're a real menace, Dennis! Y'know that?!" McHorn said as he snatched the shotgun from Wolford's paw and jerked the truck a back a sharp right. Unfortunately, he overdid it a bit and headed straight into Duke's side at a speed too fast to stop.

Witnessing this, Duke chose this moment to curl into a ball in his seat and look away from the cause of his impending death, or at least traumatising injury. But after a monstrous rumble overhead, followed by a second or two, he gathered the courage to open his eyes again. He noticed the truck was now on his right side; its ride was high enough that it drove over him completely! This gave him an idea…

Meanwhile, McHorn took his massive hands off the steering wheel and pumped the shotgun himself, which looked a lot more natural in his hands. "Dennis… _take the wheel_!" he said, forcing the wolf to abruptly grab said wheel with a look of abject horror on his muzzle. Taking a moment to accelerate and get in front of Duke's car, he finally opened the window, stuck his massive torso out and aimed the shotgun behind him.

"Hehehe… okay, _braking now_!" Duke said uneasily before easing on the brakes. Which had no effect whatsoever. "C'mon, brake! _Brake!_ " He demanded of the car, to no avail. The dashboard had so many warning lights at this point, it was lit up like a slot machine. Finally, he had no choice but to practically break his other foot and slam on the brakes as hard as possible, and only then did the car slow down, enabling him to barely evade McHorn's shot, which only left a mark in the green. However, he had braked too hard and found himself next to the wheels, which wouldn't work for him at all. As the rhino pumped his shotgun, he accelerated again and allowed the ruined steering to send him left, away from a second shot.

Finally, he applied yet more pressure to the steering in an attempt to drive underneath the ZPD truck; at this rate, he figured that his arms might pop right off and he'd have to become a pirate or something. At an almost torturously slow rate, the car finally began to edge to the right and underneath the truck, but not before McHorn got off another shotgun shot. This one actually succeeded in striking the car; the front left wheel, in fact, puncturing the tyre and making the car handle like it was on an ice rink slathered in mousse.

"GROAH… WOA-WOA-WOA-WOA-WOA…" Duke found himself going as he shook from left to right, almost in imitation of the police sirens. But he had already seen that they didn't have much green left to cover before they'd inevitably crash into the fence separating it and the artificial dunes south of the Oasis. This was his one and only shot.

Kicking open the driver's door – and reminding himself to get a golf cart the next time he decided to have a car chase on a golf course, like you were supposed to – he readied his natural weasel claws. He began to climb out the driver's seat and attempted to lean out the window, using the top of the door for stability. However, the massive heatwave behind him reminded him that the top of his car was still on fire, and more to the point, was blowing embers straight onto his shirt. So he resolved to make this quick.

He tried to reach up to the truck's underside, but the more he leaned out the car, the more it lurched off to the left. He tried to do it as gently as possible, which was a tall order when travelling at high speed down a golf course that wasn't even on flat ground, and the car itself was weaving about because one of its wheels was missing and the other had a flat tyre. He didn't have long to think about it before he felt an intense burning sensation on his back. His shirt had finally caught fire.

"GYAAAAAAGGGHHH!" he screeched from between his teeth, his eyes bulging out. The pain made his entire body latch onto one of the pipes on the truck's underside on all fours, out of ancient, self-preservation instincts everyone thought he'd buried. His eyes began to water from the pain. He haphazardly tried to bat the flames down, but it was no good, so he instead resorted to strengthening his legs' hold on the pipe, enabling him to use both arms for a limited time. He used his claws to rip his shirt open, causing it to fall off in a burning heap.

Hooking an arm around the underside of the truck, he took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief… but his respite didn't last half a second, as he noticed that, while he was occupied, his car had veered back off to the left and was now beyond his reach. Suddenly, the truck braked with such force that Duke scrambled to latch onto the underside with all four limbs again, until finally the truck stopped, Duke still vibrating almost as much as the truck's engine.

What he couldn't see was that the car he had worked so hard to steal was now, without a driver, making a beeline straight for the chain-link fence at the bottom of the golf course, just below a raised train track. It crashed straight through the fence, got caught on a number of small rocks in the Sahara Square sand, and flipped end-over-end. It landed on its front end, doing a couple more spins before finally settling on its roof, amidst the crackly sounds of broken glass and shards of metal, along with the still-burning fire.

"Agh… _CAZZO_!" Duke couldn't help but say to himself, punching the underside of the truck. "Stupid, stupid… whose stupid idea was it to steal a car an' sell it for a huge profit? Oh yeah, it was _mine_! Real genius, Duke! Ma's gonna be real pissed about this… GAH!" he grunted as he punched again, a bit too hard.

He soon felt a blast of air to his side, coming from the heavy hooves of Officer McHorn as he got out the truck, followed shortly by the lighter paws of Officer Wolford from the other side.

"Dennis, you go check the suspect vehicle. I've seen the movies. Dime-to-a-doughnut, the perp's right under my horn right now."

"Oh yeah, real non-stereotypical, Vic. An' when was the last time you've even _been_ to a doughnut shop, anyway? Doughnuts cost more than one dollar nowadays, pops!"

"Just shut up and do your job, alright?"

Duke gulped quite loudly and began to tremble. He tried to get it under control, knowing that if he trembled too much he'd risk giving himself away from… subtle vibrations or something. But he had to _try_. He couldn't get arrested _again_. Not less than a year since last time. Not after what happened with Officer Flopsy. That was a special case. He could practically hear his 'uncatchable' reputation going straight down the toilet. _Again._

However, while the truck's ride was high enough to have enabled his now-wrecked car to have driven under it, it wasn't quite high enough to allow McHorn to get a full, unobstructed view under it when on all fours. So he instead settled for blindly sliding and patting his massive hand around under the car, creating even more gusts of localised wind which made Duke latch even tighter to his perch.

Meanwhile, Wolford began a casual saunter over to the flaming wreck of the car they had been chasing, fully confident that no mammal could have possibly survived that… not that that'd be a good thing, he corrected himself, his smile faltering. In fact, it'd be very, very bad! Because a suspect died on their pursuit. Very bad. On second thoughts, there were good chances he survived. He began to smile again.

And then it was wiped off his muzzle pretty quickly when the flaming wreck suddenly and unexpectedly exploded in a huge, orange fireball, raining bits of glowing metal around the sand dunes like it was a brief shower of apocalypse. Wolford had flinched, shielding his eyes, and when he looked back, he thought… they were definitely screwed now.

"Um… Vic?" he said, meekly turning to his partner and rubbing the back of his head.

McHorn, for his part, didn't seem as fazed as he should have been. He grunted in exertion as he got back to his hooves, slowly turning around and placing his hands on his hips. "…What? Woah, that don't look good…" he said, himself flinching a little upon witnessing the exploded metal carcass beyond the fence.

Wolford's attention was drawn to something else, however. Upon noticing the shirtless weasel that was suddenly sitting directly on McHorn's snout, between his eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief, clutching his heart. Must have been hiding under the truck and climbed up Vic's numb rhino hide without him noticing. "Oh, thank God, he's alive. Phew…"

"Who's alive?! The perp? Ya seriously think he survived _that_?!" McHorn said incredulously, pointing at the wreck.

It was only then that the full impact of this revelation reached Wolford's brain. His face quickly changed from relieved to panicking and stuttering. "Uh… Vic… he's on yer…"

"…He's on my what? Who?" McHorn said, aimlessly patting around his head. The weasel looked very anxious indeed but made no attempt to move.

Wolford suddenly drew his tranquiliser dart gun and pointed it straight at the weasel. On McHorn's snout.

"Vic, don't move!"

"Wolford, what the hell are you doin' pointin' that at me for?!"

"I'm serious, Vic, Don't. _Move!_ There's a weasel. Literally. _On your face!_ "

" _What?!_ "

Before McHorn could properly respond, however, Wolford fired off a tranquiliser. Unfortunately, Duke, having been given something of a warning, managed to propel himself from where he was onto McHorn's front horn, and from there, he jumped over onto Wolford's muzzle.

The tranquiliser dart struck McHorn right between the eyes, literally, causing him to reel back from the sudden stinging sensation. "Wolford, what the… why did… woah… oh, _hell_ …" he said, his voice beginning to slur and his vision beginning to blur and spin. These tranquilisers were not strong enough to take down a rhino, but that's not to say they had no effect.

As McHorn was beginning to stumble around, Wolford was occupied with something a bit more pressing. Duke Weaselton was on his nose. He instinctively batted at him, but the little mustelid darted all over the place. And then he burrowed his way under Wolford's uniform.

"No… no! No! Get 'im off! _Get 'im off!_ " he yelled, running out of breath. He soon dropped his tranq' gun as he frantically batted around his entire body, desperately trying to get at the weasel.

"Vic, help! _Help!_ He's under my… under my… haha, under my shirt! Get 'im off! _That tickles!_ " he continued, before he finally fell over, almost helplessly rolling around on the ground, laughing with his tongue sticking out. "GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Kill me! _Somebody kill me!_ "

McHorn could hear him, without a doubt. He could even understand him. But when you're doped up on tranquilisers, it's hard to form rational thought processes. So he went for the next-best thing. He lumbered over to his partner, picked him up by the leg, and began to swing him around and around like a lasso.

"Wait, n-n-no, whaddya doin'- GAAAAGGGHHRAAARRAAR…" Wolford cried out as he lashed back and forth in a truly sickening way. The sheer force of the whiplash, however, was enough to push the clothes-intruding Duke out from under his uniform, leaving him hanging for dear life on the end of the wolf's paw.

When it had gotten to the point of whipping up a small tornado, McHorn finally whipped Wolford directly upwards. It was then that Duke's weakened fingers finally gave way and he was launched nearly thirty feet into the air, his lanky weasel body writhing about in vain. He screamed, like any mammal would.

However, he didn't fall the same thirty feet. As McHorn had decided to launch him into the air, he rose up above the raised train track at the bottom of the country club. One of the enormous trains heading into the city from the surrounding villages chose that moment to pass by. Duke landed atop the train, its speed forcing him into a roll, and he slipped and slid down and to the side, until he finally found himself hanging off the side by both paws, being blown about in the wind like a paper towel hanging out the window.

Speaking of windows, he noticed he was hanging right outside one such window on the train, beyond which sat a very well-dressed, haughty-looking antelope with round glasses, reading a fancy novel of some kind. Duke scrambled to pull himself back up by swinging his lanky body in the wind like a pendulum, until eventually the laws of physics pushed him up above the window, mere seconds before the antelope did a double-take to check that there actually was a weasel outside and he wasn't just hallucinating. He soon made the latter conclusion.

Duke bore the strong winds to look up at the police chopper. The spotlight wasn't following him. He grinned; at least he got to keep his freedom.

* * *

A short time later, the nervous young wildcat cop had made his way on foot to the bottom of the country club, following the tyre marks on the green, until he finally caught up with Officers McHorn and Wolford. He found McHorn clutching a tranq' dart in one hand, nursing his forehead with the other, leaning against his truck and generally looking rather dazed. But he at least seemed to be in better shape than Wolford, who was on the ground some distance away, noisily puking his guts out.

"So, uh… sitrep, Officer Silvio…" McHorn began to say, "…relay this to Ben back at base. Guh… I've been tranqed… I got a headache that ain't goin' away anytime tonight… could really use some water… an' Dennis over there is emptying his ice cream all over the grass… egh… those lemming brothers types won't be happy to know their top gettin'-away-from-the-wives spot has been closed for renovations…"

"Thanks, Silvio. I'll take it from here."

The wildcat and the rhino's heads almost immediately turned to face the source of this new voice. The wolf followed shortly. And went back to being sick after a second or two.

The voice belonged to a horse. A big, brown horse with a darkened mouth and off-white markings on his nose and his swept-back mane. He clearly wasn't an average ZPD officer; he was attired in a white shirt and dark slacks held up by suspenders, along with a purple tie. He had his sleeves rolled up and wore his badge around his neck, and was chewing on some straw. He had a stoic expression on his face which could, in both senses, be called 'long-faced', and his voice definitely had an air of the city's working class about it, even if he tried to hide it.

"Uh… hello…" McHorn said, scratching his horn. "Um… y-you look familiar, sir, are you…?"

"Detective Quail Oates. Yeah, that's me," the stallion replied, stretching his shoulder. "I was out for a coffee in town, an' the next thing I see is… _this_ ," he said, sounding puzzled as he rubbed the bristles on his chin. "Eh, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. It's just like racin'. When you get old enough, darkhorse victories… they 'appen so often, they ain't darkhorse no more."

McHorn nodded, but raised a brow. Yep, this was definitely Detective Oates, he thought. He wouldn't be the same horse without the tortured racing analogies. They even had a special name for them back at the station: 'Oatesisms'. "…Yeah, I guess you're right."

Oates walked a bit closer to Wolford, eyeing the sight of the exploded car beyond the fence. "I can tell ya one thing. When cars explode in public, there's usually somethin'… _bigger_ behind it. Cars don't just explode. Not without reason. Not without a…" he trailed off, circling his hoof-fingers around in thought, "…cause. I reckon there's somethin' more to this than just a joyride gone wrong. The gallop that goes twice as fast lasts half as long, an' so when it happens, you bet your shoes there's a reason for it."

As Oates turned around to question McHorn further, he heard a noticeable 'plop'. Gazing downwards, he came to the realisation that he had stepped in Wolford's puddle of puke.

"Ugh… sorry…" Wolford said, finally catching his breath.

"That's okay," Oates said without changing his expression at all, wiping his hoof off to the side. "It'll get absorbed into the grass eventually, anyway."

* * *

 _So this isn't a new chapter of BvB, unfortunately. But I think I've discovered the root of my writing problem: I can only write at certain times of year! The spring seems to be a peak writing time, so I'm going to try and make the most of it with this here fic and hopefully write some BvB, too. I wanted to post this on Zoop's 1st Anniversary yesterday, but unfortunately I was too slow. Thanks goes to Berserker88 for pre-reading the 'fic._


	2. Mama Didn't Raise No Second-Rate Crook

_**Mama Didn't Raise No Second-Rate Crook**_

Tonight was not a good night for Duke; that much was certain. He could barely see anything, he was drenched in rainwater, he was cold, he was nervous, he was constantly looking over his shoulder for the cops, and – worst of all – he had no shirt on.

For a brief, happy moment, he thought that police chase and the torturous train ride through three different biomes would be the height of his misery that night, but then he remembered something even worse. It wasn't returning to the tree tower in the Rainforest District where he lived to find that the elevator was broken and he had to climb the exterior stairs while a regular nightly monsoon was going on. That was nothing compared to the hell that awaited him when he reached floor 56, just below the top of the forest canopy.

When he finally reached the soaked wooden door with a giant '56c' on the front in brass lettering, he took a deep breath while bowing down to rub his knees; even deeper than the series of deep breaths he took to walk all the way up. He could see that the lights were on inside, so he needed to be as quiet as possible if he wanted to get in unnoticed. He didn't expect to remain unnoticed forever; even he could tell that was impossible. He just wanted to remain undetected long enough for his misdeeds to… not necessarily be _forgotten_ , but the impact lessened somewhat.

Gingerly pulling his front door keys out of his pocket, he chose to quickly unlock the door, in the hopes that the loud 'clunk' sound of the key turning would coincide with some other noise. He then gently, _slowly_ pushed the door open. He tiptoed onto the large doormat, which had 'GET LOST' written on it – Duke usually ignored it, but on this occasion it gave him cause to stop. He _would_ be getting lost if he couldn't make it to his… room. His room that doesn't exist.

He cringed, rubbing his temples in frustration. He didn't _have_ a room. There was nowhere for him to hide. Except maybe in a cupboard.

He shook his head to try and take his mind off it; he was wasting too much time. He resolved to very quickly hop inside, rabbit-like, and quickly – but _gently_ – shut the door behind him. He looked back inside, at the octagonal room that made up the centrepiece of the apartment. The room was rather messy overall; the walls were covered in crisscrossing pipes, and what you _could_ see was layered with green, palm leaf-patterned wallpaper. The room was almost completely dark; the big, ornate ceiling fan light wasn't even switched on; the only light was spreading in from an adjacent kitchen, reached from some steps to Duke's right.

Duke's ear perked up as he could hear the clinking and clattering of glasses from the kitchen. He sighed and let his body relax a bit. He had made it in, with his 'housemate' none the wiser. Now he just needed to get past the kitchen. Turning to the right, he leaned his entire body to one side to get a sneak peek… only to overdo it and lose his balance.

His left foot instinctively hopped to the side, triggering a pressure plate hidden underneath one of the creaky wooden boards. This caused a number of fur dryers to emerge from underneath the floorboards around Duke's position, blowing hot air straight at him from all directions and drying off the excess rainwater his fur had absorbed. The sudden blast of heat made him reel and shut his eyes, but it was over in less than seven seconds. Once it was over with, he grunted with annoyance and shook his entire body to get his fur back into shape. Dusting his paws off of any final raindrops, he felt refreshed and stood up straight, grinning.

" _DAAAAAANTEEEEEE!_ "

Hearing that voice was enough to snap him out of his fur dryer-induced trance, making him practically jump right off the floor with a yelp. Arching his back and trembling, his wide eyes looked back at the kitchen. The figure of a weasel, not unlike his own, was being cast over him in shadow. All he could see was its silhouette, but he knew all too well who it was. The figure proceeded to switch the main light on, illuminating it – or rather, _her_ – in full.

She was an older weasel, looking to be in her fifties, with thick eyelashes and heavy bags under her eyes. She wore grey slacks with a thick belt, a black shirt and, most prominently, a zebra-patterned women's blazer. She held a lit cigarette in one paw and a small glass of strong beverage in the other, and was at this very moment advancing on Duke with the slow steps one might expect from a much larger mammal.

"Where the _hell_ have you been, huh?!" she demanded, pointing with her cigarette. She spoke with an accent that betrayed her Rattalian heritage, much like Duke's own.

Duke could only stutter as he began to reflexively step back.

"Oh… uh… um… h-hi, ma!" he said weakly, with an equally-weak wave.

"Don't 'hi ma' me! You've been gone for nearly _twelve hours_!" she belted out, pointing at the clock on the wall behind her. "What the hell have you been doin'?! And why the hell aren't ya wearin' a shirt?! You said you were gonna get us some dough, so if ya got anythin' less than a million freakin' dollars, I want a good-goddamn-explanation for it, _capisce_?!"

Duke began to twiddle his fingers together and looked towards the floor, jumbled noises vaguely resembling words spilling out his mouth.

"I… I, uh... w-well, I k-kinda… y'see, it's really… I…"

Duke's ma took a moment to stick her cigarette in her mouth and blow smoke into her son's face, presumably under the assumption that it'd make him cough his words out. And cough he did.

"I… blegh, I-I had this plan, r-right, a-and I… well it sorta…"

"What?! _What?!_ _WHAT?!_ I'd like to know sometime _before_ I die of old age, if ya don't mind!"

"A-alright, well… there was this car in Sahara Square, it was, uh… like a… like a…"

"Like a, like a, like a…" the mother repeated, mockingly. "Gee, I don't s'pose it was a silver sports car o' Tanukyese make, was it?!"

Duke practically froze, loudly gulping. "Um… yeah. Uh… h-how did ya know?"

"'Cause I've developed psychic powers. How'd ya think I know, you stupid, incompetent, lousy-ass amateur?!" she began to yell again, forcefully poking at her son's unclothed chest with each word, making him jerk back a bit each time. "You were on the freakin' news!"

"I… I was?"

Duke's ma grunted harshly before taking a quick gulp of her drink and another quick puff on her cigarette. "Yeah, ya were! How could ya _not_ end up on the news?! It was like a goddamn natural disaster, it just _had_ to be covered!"

"Um… w-well, okay, uh…"

Duke began to tap his fingers together, awkwardly looking in just about every direction but his ma's face. He knew he was going to regret asking this question, but it was going to get answered whether he liked it or not.

"Wh-what did I do wrong?"

With that, he pre-emptively closed his eyes in preparation for the upcoming tirade.

"What did ya wrong? What did ya do _wrong?!_ What did ya do _RIGHT?!_ That's the shorter answer, Dante!" she shouted, spraying spittle all over his face. She proceeded to smoke some more, coughing a little as she walked off and began to pace up and down the room, counting offences off on her free fingers.

"Let's _count_ the crap ya did wrong, shall we?! Of all the places you coulda chosen to steal a car, you chose the Oasis Circle, in full, unob-freakin'-structed view o' roughly a thousand security cameras an' dozens o' witnesses! An' then ya fail to notice a cop car the size o' my great aunt at the side o' the road, ya drive like a savage, ya set the car on fire an' ya _blew it up!_ How the hell d'ya even do that?! I mean, I'm actually _impressed!_ Cars don't just explode when ya roll 'em over! It's like yer so monumentally inept, even the laws o' physics don't want nothin' to do with ya!"

"H-hey, well, um… well, it ain't all bad!" Duke said.

"Oh, is that so? _How?_ "

"I got the guy's wallet, too!" he confidently declared as he went to retrieve it from his empty pocket. And then he tried his other pocket. Nothing there, either. And since he was only wearing a pair of cheap sweatpants, there weren't any other places he could have put it. The sudden brightness on the face was gone within seconds. He figured it must have either fallen out of his pocket when he was on the train, or someone pickpocketed _him_ on the way up. Karmic, perhaps, but karma was not something he appreciated at the best of times.

"Uh… o-okay I guess I don't _actually_ have his wallet, but… but hey, at least I got away!"

"Oh, well, that makes it _aaaaall_ better, don't it?!" Duke's ma said, breaking to have another cigarette puff. "It's great to know that you're free to wreck the Wesiltone name some more with yer so-called 'crimes'!" she said with an 'inverted commas' gesture from her cigarette paw. "I mean, I know I've given ya a lotta crap over yer 'extended vacations' over in Verdant Corrals, leavin' yer poor old ma to rot all by herself, but maybe I was just short-sighted! Maybe jail's exactly what you need! You could go to the library and get some brains to back up yer coglioni, in the brief period o' time before they shrink back to normal size! An y'know yer not exactly a 'master criminal' when gettin' sent to jail is an _improvement_! Dante Wesiltone, scion o' the Wesiltone clan… _my ass_!" she finally concluded, downing the rest of her beverage in one shot.

"B-but…" Duke began to meekly assert, "Ma, I keep tellin' ya, it ain't 'Dante' no more, it's Duke!"

"Oooooooohhhhh, _shaaaaddaaaap_!" Mrs. Wesiltone said like someone had squeezed the words out of her, taking a moment to set her now-empty glass on her wooden coffee table. "Who the hell d'ya think you are, ya miserable little ingrate?! I mean, 'Duke Weaselton'! Yer not a duke! Yer not a knight! Yer not even a goddamn peasant! Yer like… a colony o' germs that's risen from the sewah an' assumed a weasel-like form! The lowest form o' life on the planet! I mean, what's wrong with ya?! You ashamed o' yer heritage or somethin', huh? Actually, on second thought, it's probably a good thing yer distancin' yerself from the Wesiltone name, otherwise yer pa'd probably be rollin' in his grave even more than he already is!"

"M-ma, stop goin' about pa… y'only knew him for… a month or s-somethin'!" Duke said, trembling once more.

"Yeah, an' he proved 'imself a better weasel in one month than you've done in twenty-six years!" Mrs. Wesiltone once again poked her son in the chest. "I didn't pull scores worth a couple million dollars per go just so I could raise some shabbily-dressed piece o' taffy whose idea o' 'master crime' is sellin' bootleg DVDs on the street corner when everyone just downloads 'em over the internet for free anyways! An' when ya _do_ take a bicycle pump to yer coglioni an' try somethin' actually profitable, y'invariably screw it up!"

Duke attempted to raise a finger in protest, but almost as soon as he saw it shaking around like it was on a spring, he could feel his ears and his nose feeling uncomfortably hot.

"Well, whaddya gotta say for yerself?!" Mrs. Wesiltone demanded.

"I… just… I-I… I kinda… well… a-alright! I screwed up!" Duke finally admitted, stepping back and putting his paws to his bare chest.

"I screwed up real bad! N-no, really, massively, colossically… that ain't even a word, I'm havin' to make up words to describe how bad I screwed up! I somehow blew up the car! I dunno how, but I did! An' worse, the cops know it was me! W-well, I don't _know_ that they know, but I _guess_ they know! An' if they find me, they're gonna put me in jail less than a year after last time, an' this time I ain't gonna have that lawyer the ex-mayor 'helpfully' provided! I am c-u-l-l, culled! A-and…"

Duke stopped mid-panic, looking around him. "…Unless I get out!" he frantically began to pace around the room just like his mother had done. "Y-yeah, maybe if I just pack my bags and run as far away from this city as possible, an' spend the rest of my life in some trailer park or cabin in the woods somewhere, maybe they won't get me! I don't wanna go back to Verdant Corrals, I don't wanna get flushed down the toilet again!"

Mrs. Wesiltone grabbed him by the shoulders as he got close, which at least got him to stop moving, but not stop breathing heavily.

"Alright, alright, calm the hell down, will ya?! When y'ain't bein' a lousy screw-up, yer bein' a whiny ass!"

Placing her cigarette in her mouth, she grabbed him by the snout to forcefully lock his gaze onto her face. "Dante, look at me. Look me in the eyes! You may be a dumbass of astro-freakin'-nomical proportions, but yer still my son! An' so it's my begrudgin' responsibility to make sure y'don't half-ass whatever it is yer thinkin' o' doin'!"

She took another puff and stepped back, as she noticed that Duke seemed to be cooling down. "If yer gonna try an' flee the cops, just fleein' the city ain't enough. Try fleein' the country instead. Lots o' countries to go to. Wouldn't recommend Mexicow anymore, they'd see that comin' from a mile away. If I was you, I'd go to Pandina. Most of 'em can speak our tongue, an' they ain't gonna invoke an international extradition treaty over some small-time hustler like yerself, an' at least the bootleggin' business is thrivin' over in Sharpei. Lay low for about a year or so, an' odds are good that the cops will 'ave long-forgotten about the little 'bad thing' ya did, an' those who do remember won't give two squirts o' milk from half a dead cow! But, first things first, y'gonna need a forged passport!"

"B-b-but…" Duke stuttered, "I can't go out there _now_! The cops are gonna be on some city-wide weasel-hunt for me!"

"I never said you had to go _now,_ you deaf schifoso!" she responded with yet another hard poke, which almost made her son fall onto his tail. " _God_ , gimme strength! Go in the mornin', or somethin'! Or the day after, I don't care! Just get it done!"

She stopped to take another drag from her cigarette, only to realise that the light had gone out and most of it had burned away. Grunting with annoyance and spluttering out some coughs in the process, she wandered over to the coffee table and dumped it into an ash tray. "Look, I ain't got the patience to deal with yer crap right now. It's nearly eleven-freakin'-PM an' I gotta go to work tomorrow! There's some fish sandwiches in the fridge, so eat some o' those an' maybe yer'll think o' some genius plan. Or yer'll screw it up. Probably the latter, but miracles do 'appen, don't they?"

"B-but…" Duke was about to say… something… before his ma suddenly wandered off up a small flight of stairs just to the left of the kitchen, retiring for the night. As he heard the 'slam' of a door from up the stairs, he began to have trouble remembering what he was even going to say. Probably something unnecessary, he thought, in a rare moment of clarity.

* * *

Barely half an hour had passed before Duke had consumed what food he could find and immediately retired to bed; 'bed', in his case, being under a thin blanket on the couch. He'd always slept on the couch; part of his ma's training program for him. Whenever he complained, she'd always bring up the time when she had to sleep on the catwalks under a suspension bridge for nearly a whole year, and so the couch would remain his resting place.

However, on this night, things would be different. Duke could tell the instant he heard a loud banging noise on the door. The sudden sound violently propelled him from sleep with a yelp, making him fling the blanket straight to the floor.

Digging his claws into the sofa, his body rigid but trembling and his teeth chattering, he urgently surveyed his surroundings. A rather difficult task when all the lights had been turned off and his eyes hadn't been given time to adjust to the darkness. Hearing was also an issue; as the old cliché went, it was a dark and stormy night, so anything he could hear would be drowned out by the sound of rain outside.

This went on for a good minute or so as Duke allowed his eyes to adjust. He looked over at the door; nothing. He looked over at the window by the television; nothing. He looked over at the kitchen; nothing. He bent over the front of the couch and stuck his head directly underneath it, looking under there; nothing. Of course, he overdid it and wound up sliding off the couch, hitting his back on the coffee table and falling on the floor.

"OOF! Gah…" he muttered as he rubbed his now-bruised back, "stupid, stupid… yer hearin' things, Duke, y'gotta calm down… yeah, yer good…"

He clambered back onto the couch, picking the discarded blanket off the floor and allowed his body to ease up. He slowly splayed out and relaxed. His eyes began to close. This was what he needed, he thought. He needed sleep therapy. It would be the best way to stick it to… whatever it was that was out there. Which was _nothing_ , he reminded himself.

"Aaah…"

And then it happened again.

The sound of hard knocks against the front door thundered through the apartment, once more making Duke yelp and launch himself out of his couch. Except this time it seemed to be with even more urgency, as he frantically threw himself over the back of the couch and attached himself to it with his claws, digging himself in. Once more, he trembled and slowly raised his head to look around.

"Ma? …Ma?" he called out, quietly, but to no avail.

"AGH!" he cried out as the thundering knocks came yet again, his view immediately darting over to the door. Gulping, he resolved that he'd clearly need to investigate personally. He figured that even if his ma could hear him, she'd pressure him into investigating anyway. It'd be the most miserable – and thus, character-building – option.

Setting himself onto the floor, he tip toed over to the front door, barely stopping himself from accidentally stepping onto the fur-dryer pressure plate. His foot hovering over it, he stepped around it, and as he approached the door, he blindly patted one paw around the umbrella rack to the side. Inside the rack was a mustelid-sized baseball bat that Mrs. Wesiltone kept around for unwanted visitors. Or rather, _one_ of the things she kept around for unwanted visitors.

Taking hold of the bat and getting into the right stance, he warily pushed his face up against the door to peek through its peephole. "…Huh?" he went as he saw nobody on the other side of the door, just a great, foggy mass of pitch black and rain and the wooden platform outside. He slowly got onto his knees, sliding his face down the door to repeat the process with another peephole, placed lower down in case of mouse-sized visitors. Nobody there either. Was someone playing tricks on him?

Standing back up, Duke consciously got into a much steadier fighting stance, circling his bat around and putting on his 'war face'. He was supposed to be the duke of crime, not some helpless mugging victim; _he_ was the one who did the mugging. Nobody just plays pranks on him in the middle of the night and gets away with it. If there was someone out there, they were in for a serious lesson in how not to underestimate a weasel!

Though he still couldn't stop himself from hesitating and looking behind him as he reached out to the doorknob. Shaking his head, he finally grabbed hold of the doorknob, twisted it, and forcefully jerked the door open towards him.

As he had suspected, there was no one out there. No-one he could see, anyway. But of course, if they were playing tricks, they'd be hiding around the corner or something ridiculous. Stepping outside – and doing his best to ignore the humidity and the heavy shower – he glanced off to the right, surveying the exterior platform; nothing. Then he glanced back to the left, in case someone had somehow climbed up the tree-tower; nothing there, either.

"A-HA!" he suddenly went as he practically 'jumped' back around, in the hopes of catching any smart mammals who tried to sneak up behind him at that moment. The look of excited ferocity on his face faded quickly, for there was nobody there.

Lowering his bat, Duke grumbled to himself. As much as he wanted to give this prankster a beating, he really wasn't in the mood to play hide-and-seek at this time of night, in this weather. He resolved to actually walk a bit further outside if the prankster continued to prank, but until then, he chose to turn around and walk back inside.

And then it hit him. Literally.

'CLONG', went the noise, as he felt a sudden, inexplicable but very sharp pain in the back of his head. Within seconds, his skull turned numb, dulling his senses. He dropped his bat on the floor and his vision began to spin and blur.

"Uh… n-no… no ice… no ice for me…" he rambled as he attempted to turn around, only to be thwarted by the sudden loss of control over his bodily functions. His entire body twisted around on one foot and he fell backwards. Fortunately the numbness of his skull insulated him against the pain of falling back-first onto the floor. He could barely hear the 'thwump'. Soon, he could barely hear anything. Or see anything. It wasn't long before he blacked out completely.

* * *

"Ughhh…"

Slowly but surely, Duke could see light returning to his vision. The black turned to grey, and a blurry, indistinct figure standing in front of him became slightly clearer. But his senses hadn't fully switched back on yet; as it stood, it felt like his entire body had been injected with that stuff you get at the dentists. That's how Duke remembered it, anyhow.

The process of his returning senses was sped along slightly when he felt yet another sharp pain on the side of his face in the form of a slap, which made his entire upper body topple over onto the floor. At least he could finally feel the floor; the rather hard, metallic floor.

He groaned as the blurry presence in front of him grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back upright, propping him up against another metallic surface. As his senses returned, he could feel the… whatever room he was in swaying about slightly, and he could hear a muffled drone from outside. Sounding vaguely like fans.

"Oh, for love of…" he could hear someone say. He didn't have much time to ponder on it before a second, bigger blurry figure approached him, grabbed him by the top of the head and forcefully smacked it against the wall with another 'CLONG'.

"Wake! Up!" the voice demanded as Duke groaned harder, his gaze lurching upwards. The bigger figure turned to the smaller figure and pointed in his face. "Learning experience. Next time, bring them to me conscious. I prefer not to waste time with morning routine."

The extra smack to the back of the head seemed to redistribute the numbness around Duke's body. That part of his head once more went senseless, but the rest of his body seemed to return to some degree of sharpness. Looking back down, he was able to properly make out the two figures for the first time.

The smaller figure was a red squirrel with puffed-up cheeks and tufts on his ears, dressed in slightly grungy slacks, a messy button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a green argyle sweater. Despite being an 'adorable squirrel', his face nonetheless looked hardened and slightly bruised; alarmingly, his buckteeth were silver, and he had bandages on both his paws and on his big, bushy tail. At that moment, he held an oversized and scratched-up frying pan – clearly intended for a slightly bigger mammal – in one paw, resting on his shoulder. He was squinting at Duke with a visible degree of suspicion, not saying a word.

Duke slowly turned his head to the left, taking a look at the bigger figure. He, too, found himself squinting, but in confusion. The other mammal looked strangely familiar. Some kind of mustelid. The chocolate-brown fur, the sober black suit… he only looked even more familiar when he turned around, exposing the white mark on his snout, the tuft on his head, the glasses and the golden tie. These were all distinct features, but he wasn't sure where he first saw them…

"Can you hear me?" he asked. The voice seemed familiar, too. It was slightly high-pitched and came out with a Bearuskan accent.

Duke nodded in response.

"Can you _talk_?"

"Ugh… yeah." Duke said, his brow beginning to creep upwards with concern.

"Good. You are 'Duke Weaselton', yes?"

"Y-yeah… yeah, that's me…" he answered, not really thinking.

"Good. So we are all approaching same page, as you say in this country. Do you know who _I_ am?"

"Um…"

Duke stopped to glance at the floor. He attempted to fidget into a more comfortable position… and it was only now that he finally realised that his paws were cuffed behind his back. His eyes widened slightly; this urged him to think faster. It came back to him quickly after that.

"Y-yeah, you're… you're… Dmitry, right? Uh… oh, crap, um… is this about… the car? Because, uh… I can explain!"

"We'll get to that later. Dmitry is first name, yes. Do you know _last_ name?"

"Uh… um… ah… Dmitry, Dmitry… uh… Dmitry somethin'…" he muttered to himself frantically, desperately trying to remember, as though his life depended on it. And it was rapidly dawning on him that, all things considered, his life probably _did_ depend on it. Soon he was silently mouthing out all the possible Bearuskan-sounding surnames that could fit with a 'Dmitry'.

However, the question was soon answered for him when he noticed something. One of Dmitry's paws was in his pocket. His other paw was out of his pocket, holding… a juicebox. Apple juice, it seemed. The mink began to slurp on it as he tapped one foot with impatience.

Healthy drinks. Nerdy glasses. Bright ties. Tanukyese cars. A squirrel with a frying pan.

This was bad. Very, _very_ bad.

Duke's eyes widened to the point of popping out. He stuttered. His feet began to scrape against the floor, as though he was instinctively trying to push himself up against the wall. If this was who he thought it was, then he was now locked and bound in a small room with one of Savannah Central's biggest drug lords.

He'd heard plenty of stories about him, none of them good. Most of them involving those who interfered with his business, be they pred or prey, small mammal or big mammal. They varied in exact content, but usually the interloper would be dragged out of home in their sleep and shot in the back of the head, their body being thrown into a room with some other interloper who had been force-fed Night Howlers and turned into a savage. The endings of these stories got predictable after a while.

He tried to remain optimistic. Maybe it was a prank. Surely such a notorious figure wouldn't look this… non-notorious. _Surely._

"You… y-you're not… Dmitry… _Minsko_ … are ya? Heheh… heh… y'can't be, right? Th-this has gotta be some kinda joke, right? …Right?!"

Dmitry Minsko didn't say anything. He simply looked over to his squirrel henchman with half-lidded eyes; the squirrel returned the expression, like they were anticipating the inevitable.

Duke's legs began to scrape against the floor even faster now, even though it was obviously not going to accomplish anything. But his weasel instincts couldn't simply be turned off, especially not when dealing a mammal as dangerous as this.

"O-okay, look, I know I stole yer car, a-and… and I was stupid! It was a stupid, stupid, _stupid_ idea! B-but… y'gotta understand, Mr. Minsko, I-I'm a desperate mammal! L-like… I, uh… I lost my job! I lost my home! It got destroyed in an… in an earthquake! I bankrupted myself on a train ticket to the city! I got mugged! They stripped me naked! They broke my legs! And then my girlfriend left me! And then my brother lost _his_ job! And he started drinkin'! And he jumped off a bridge! And my niece was in a bus crash! And my ma's house burned down with her still in it! And my dad has got rabies! And he ate an entire village! And destroyed my prize marrow! _There's a good explanation, I swear, Mr. Minsko! Please don't kill me!"_

It was only after he spewed out every excuse he could think of that he stopped to catch his breath… but he couldn't catch his breath. It just kept coming out hard and fast to power his rapidly-beating heart. When he blinked, he could feel tears of terror building up in his eyes.

As this was going on, the squirrel simply rolled his eyes at Duke's desperate plea. Mr. Minsko, meanwhile, walked closer to the weasel and adjusted his glasses.

"Oh please, this is getting _embarrassing._ I know you stole my car… but you didn't _just_ steal my car, did you? If you _just_ stole my car, I could have picked it up from police impoundment lot and that would be end of that! And I certainly would not have needed to bring Small Fry into it," he said, briefly looking at the pan-wielding squirrel. "Contrary to what some think, I don't deal with petty revenge. I am not so insecure that I feel need to waste time and money settling playground grudges! And speaking of money; that brings me onto the _cost_ of your little joyride!"

Once more, Duke began to defensively ramble away. "The cost?! Ohhh, r-right, yeah… that. Uh… w-well, how much was it? I-if you need money, I can get it for ya! O-or I can get you a new car! I'll find one, I'll find ten of 'em! I-I'll do anythin', anythin' ya want! I'll polish yer glasses, I'll file yer taxes, I'll… wait, no, y'don't pay taxes, do ya… um- n-not that I care! I mean, hell, I don't pay taxes, either! Hate 'em! I'll help ya blow up the… taxes buildin', that's how much I hate 'em! An' then I'll kill the mayor, too, just for good measure! I-if ya want me to, that is! You just gimme the word, I'm on it!"

Minsko sighed, shaking his head, and waved to his squirrel companion. "Small Fry, do the honours."

The squirrel nodded.

"W-wait, what honours?" Duke asked. As he glanced at 'Small Fry', he noticed something else alarming. One of his feet was cuffed to a rail on the wall.

The 'room' he was in… it was a big metal box. But it swayed around in all directions. Not just from side to side, but up and down, too. And there were fans outside. Twisting his head around to look behind him, he saw the 'wall' behind him actually had handles. Door handles.

Before he could come to any realisation, Small Fry grabbed Duke's snout and forcibly turned his gaze back in his direction. He then produced an orange seemingly out of nowhere, one as big as a fox's fist. Duke gasped, which provided the perfect opening for the squirrel to shove the orange straight into Duke's teeth, effectively lodging it in there.

It was obvious even to the weasel why it was in there. It was to stop him from screaming.

Suddenly, the squirrel opened the doors Duke was leaning against, and he felt a strong, humid breeze blow up against his back. Without warning, Small Fry pushed Duke out the doors.

Duke found himself hanging upside-down, hundreds of feet above the ground, prevented from falling only by his cuffed foot. Below him, he could see one of the Rainforest District's many canals, with lit-up streets lining the sides; even the elephants being smaller than mice at this height. To his sides, he could see they were even higher up than the district's canopy. Above him, he saw that the orange van he was locked inside was being held aloft by an enormous, equally-orange, inflatable mass; the fans he could hear were attached to the side. It was a blimp.

It soon became apparent that it was a good idea to stick that orange in Duke's mouth, otherwise his subsequent shrieking would have pierced their ears. As it stood, anything that came out his mouth was muffled beyond comprehension. Not that it stopped him.

"MMMMMPH! _MMMNNNPH!_ " he went as he impotently flopped around upside down in the heavy wind, his wet fur getting swept back. It wasn't the first time in the last twelve hours he'd been riding a fast-moving vehicle from the outside, but at least then he wasn't _upside down_ , with only a cheap foot-cuff between him and a gruesome death, smashing into the water at terminal velocity – or worse, if they happened to be flying over a bridge. And he knew perfectly well that the key to the cheap foot-cuff was in the paws of a complete psycho. The impact would probably reduce his body to mush, or he'd sink to the bottom of the canal and get picked clean by ravenous fish. There'd be nothing to suggest it wasn't an accident.

But instead of just getting it over with, he was allowed to continue dangling helplessly for an unbearably long period of time. Probably only five minutes in reality, but it felt like hours. He was too high up to attract the attention of any of the pedestrians far below him. He tried to scream so hard that he'd spit out the orange in his mouth, but it had gotten snagged on his sharpened teeth, making him silently curse his carnivore heritage. All he succeeded in doing was making his throat sore, adding yet another problem to the increasingly-long list of problems he'd accumulated that night.

"Alright, Small Fry, I think he's had enough…" Duke could barely hear Minsko say over the sound of the storm. Looking back up, he saw Small Fry put his pan down and reach out to grab Duke by the foot – with Minsko pulling _him_ in from behind as well, to prevent Duke from attempting anything 'smart' like using his free leg to pull them out the back. They swung Duke back inside the blimp's under-truck with another 'thwump', leaving his shivering, wet body to create a massive puddle. Small Fry rushed to shut the doors and pick his pan back up, urgently wiping off any errant droplets of water.

"The orange." Minsko said, now once again standing nonchalantly near the under-truck's driver seat, leaning against the wall and slurping away the last of his juicebox. Small Fry nodded and, with no time wasted, placed both his paws on the handle of his frying pan and swiftly brought it down straight on Duke's exposed midsection.

The strike to the stomach made the weasel forcibly expel enough air to unlock his jaw and spit the orange back out of his mouth, like a strike to a water hose forcing the water to come out faster due to extra pressure. Of course, it also created yet _another_ numb pain on Duke's rather battered body. He grunted and began to hack, cough annd wheeze with his tongue sticking out, overcompensating for the loss of air while he was outside, while the stomach pain made him attempt to roll over onto his front side, defensively curling up to nurse the new bruise.

"Time for talk is over," Minsko began to say as he stepped forward once more, his second-in-command stepping out of his way. "Now _I_ talk, and _you_ listen. And if you don't listen, I have Small Fry take you for more fresh air. Sound fair?"

Duke simply nodded in response.

" _Good!_ " Minsko said, smiling and bopping Duke on the nose with his finger. An odd gesture, Duke thought, but not one he'd question.

"Since you asked how much the car was, it wasn't much. Only trivial little sum of 300,000 dollars! _Rounded down!_ That car was not just any car. It was a Hamsda N60-Z LINSO, tenth anniversary edition. Only a hundred of them have ever been made. The extras I ordered, which included such things as reinforced glass, bodywork and hydrogen fuel cell engine, cost me an extra 100k, for grand total of 400,000. Which means that I am now nearly half a million dollars out of pocket, because of you. In my line of work, that represents eighteen months' salary! So I'm sure you can understand why I'm just a _little_ upset that you destroyed my car. I am sure you would do same thing I am doing now if you were in my position. I know your mother would. She's got serious history."

Minsko slurped up the last of his apple juice as he stepped back, turned around and wandered over the front of the room. He tapped against the wall with his knuckles to signal the driver.

"Ah…" he 'said' as his thirst was finally quenched. He crumpled his now-empty juicebox in his fist, startling Duke enough for him to jump, but thankfully not enough for him to say anything. Carelessly dropping it on the floor, he looked back behind to address the weasel once more.

"Tell me, Duke Weaselton. Have you ever met a honey badger?"

Duke warily looked over at Small Fry, his brow furrowed slightly in confusion. Small Fry returned the gaze with a look of impatience, circling his paw around as if to say 'well?'

"Um… uh… I-I mighta done," Duke hesitantly answered, looking back at Minsko. "I dunno, w-what does a honey badger look like?"

"What they look like… not important. What is important is what they are capable of. You are aware of my organisation's dealings with Night Howlers, correct?"

Duke nodded. Even _he_ knew that after the Night Howler crisis the year before, the illegal drug trade was flooded with all manner of Night Howler derivatives for recreational use; for those wishing to lose their inhibitions and literally go wild, it was the Holy Grail. All of them claimed to be safer than the ultra-concentrated form used by former mayor Bellwether, all of them were watered-down or blended in various ways to make them less detectable by the law, and all of them had names like 'Stop N Drop', 'Wildhop' and 'Feral Dream'. Hearing about them on the news was practically a cliché by this point.

Even so, it seemed like a business where you either got rich if you were smart, or you got jailed on your first day if you weren't. Duke never wanted any part of it. If he couldn't even pull off a simple jewellery store heist…

"Well, the thing about honey badgers is… they are easily underestimated." Dmitry continued. "They are small, but they act big. Feed them Night Howler, and they attack everything in sight. Lion, cheetah, buffalo, elephant. You cannot catch them; they _twist around in own skin_ to escape. Their hide is so thick, it requires high-calibre bullet to penetrate. And the worst part is… unlike most mammals, they are almost as smart under influence as they are normally; it is on record that a savage honey badger retains enough mind to open doors, identify locks, use tools. You cannot hold them for long. So they require steady diet to prevent starved craziness and sudden escapes, followed by… eh, you know. Blood, gore, screaming, police, large cleaning bills. All that stuff. Believe me, I know. It was not fun having to explain _that_ to tenant next door."

Once more, Minsko turned around and began to slowly walk over to the downed weasel, his hands in his pockets and slouching slightly, as if consciously attempting to be 'casual'.

"Now. Let's say I had such a honey badger under my care. I could just feed you to him – or her – but I won't!" he said 'excitedly', pacing back to the other side of the van. "If I wanted you out of the picture, you would not be here. There is simple reason for this: you owe me. Revenge has no point to it, but compensation, that is different. You lucky old weasel!" he said as he turned around, even 'excitedly' swinging a fist in front of him. Duke couldn't help but raise a brow again. He looked over to Small Fry briefly, who continued to just stand there, unfazed as ever.

"However," Minsko continued, "I am aware you are no ordinary debtor, in grand scheme of things. I understand sometime last year, you committed a serious offence against a good friend of mine. The only reason you made it out of that alive and not, say, with your eyeballs in bootleg Tundratown Pawpsicle was due to intervention of a… vigilante. One he had reason to listen to. That is all I shall say about it."

Duke glanced off to his side as he tried to figure out what Minsko was even talking about. He couldn't have been talking about what happened with Mr. Big, surely. How the hell would he know about that?

"Yep." Minsko said as he once more stood by Duke, taking a moment to sharply inhale. "Most scumbags I deal with: just scumbags! You, though, you have one big fat sin, unaccounted for! You, you're…" Minsko trailed off, waggling his fingers in front of his snout, "…different! So, I have little something special planned for you."

Suddenly and without warning, Minsko's face twisted into a huge, toothy snarl as he reached out towards Duke with lightning speed.

He grabbed him by the neck and forced him to stand up, dragging him against the wall, spitting and choking. As the loss of air seemed like it might actually make Duke's eyes pop out, his feet went into overdrive once more… especially once Dmitry flicked his other paw, bringing the mustelid claws atop his half-webbed fingers into full view. Minsko stepped in close, leaving his natural knives hovering dangerously close to Duke's throat. Duke's chest began to beat like something was trying to get out; his body, probably, trying to escape from his skin, and he probably would have been drenched in sweat if he wasn't already drenched in water.

"You need to learn some respect, _Dante Wesiltone_!" Minsko practically growled out, his carnivore teeth making Duke lean his head back so hard he was in danger of crushing his already-battered skull against the wall. "Here's how it works from now on. You have exactly seventy-two hours to pay me 400,000 dollars in compensation. No more, no less. That is three days. Simple stuff. And this is where special treatment comes in. If you are late, you screw it up, you call the cops, or you try to skip town, _then I will cut your vitals off and feed them to honey badger!_ I will accept no excuses; even if a meteorite lands in your bathroom, I want my money. And for every extra day you fail to reimburse me for loss, I will cut off a finger, feed that to honey badger. Then cut off toes, then tail, then cute, wiggly little weasel nose, until your entire body has been _reduced to contents of a septic tank!"_ Dmitry hissed out.

Minsko's posture and expression suddenly relaxed and he let go of Duke, returning to a standing position. Duke had a suspicion that he was just luring him into a false sense of security, but that didn't stop him from yelping and clumsily stumbling back onto the floor when the mink suddenly lunged at him with the same bloodthirsty expression, with _both_ sets of claws out.

Minsko put his claws to his sides and looked down at Duke, now quietly whimpering and beginning to defensively curl up. "Do I make myself perfectly? _Clear?_ "

Duke gulped again. "C-crystal."

"…What?"

"Um… I mean, yeah. I-it means 'crystal clear'."

"Uh…huh." Dmitry said. He stood back up straight and began to sniff the air, curious. "…Duke, have you wet yourself?"

Duke hesitantly glanced at his crotch. He noticed Small Fry stepping away from him, disgusted. Truth be told, he had no idea. He was wet all over from water and sweat; he wouldn't have noticed.

"Um… I-I don't know…"

"Hmph. Well, just to be sure…" Dmitry began, waving his squirrel henchman over.

"N-n-no, please! I-I don't wanna get any more fresh air!" Duke pleaded as the two of them grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up; though Minsko did most of the pulling due to Small Fry's much shorter height.

"Don't worry, friend! We're over that now. We've reached a simple, civilised understanding," Dmitry began to smile as he reassuringly patted Duke on the shoulder. Meanwhile, Small Fry unlocked the cuffs restraining Duke's paws and the one keeping him chained to the rail. Duke probably should have known better, but he allowed himself to relax as he began to wring his wrists, embracing the freedom he thought he'd never get back.

"You just need bath, that's all. Quick bath."

"A bath?" Duke asked, confused.

Before he could so much as think about it, Small Fry swung open one of the back doors. Minsko's ferocious snarl briefly returned as he forcefully took hold of Duke with both paws and pushed him outside.

Fortunately for Duke, his obvious screams of terror didn't last long; while the door had been closed, the blimp had descended several stories and was now hovering a safe distance above the canal. Barely a second passed before Duke landed straight in the water with a splash, and upon finding himself underwater, he thrashed about in a panic for a moment before surfacing, catching his breath.

"Remember! 400k! Seventy-two hours! Vitals! Honey badger! Have a good night!" Dmitry Minsko called out to the wet weasel. On that last note, he did a cheery 'OK' gesture with one paw while his other paw reached out to the door. Duke could barely see Small Fry standing behind him, doing a throat-slitting gesture with his thumb, before Minsko slammed the door shut.

As Duke treaded water, he simply stayed there for a while as he watched the blimp ascend into the canopy. He began to retch, spitting out the RD's trademark muddy water.

This was just typical. So much for letting what happens in Sahara Square stay in Sahara Square. Without even attempting to swim for safety, he brought out his wet paw to rub his equally-wet chin in thought. When he was this far up the creek – both figuratively and literally – he'd need to keep calm. He _had_ to. He'd just need to get someone to help him.

* * *

Far outside Zootopia city limits, just outside the 'quaint hamlet' of Bunnyburrow, a vast field of corn swayed in the night breeze. The sky was clear, littered with stars and unpolluted by urban lights. The only sound for miles on end was the gentle howling of the wind and the cacophonous chirping of crickets in the grass.

Also, talking. Very loudly.

"Heeeey, I ever tell you 'bout the time my ol' buddy Gid tried to make 'is own fireworks?" said a grungy-looking ferret in a mechanic's jumpsuit, his accent betraying his rural heritage.

"See, the stereo-type goes that foxes 'ave got brains too big for their own good, but Gid was atypical; he was dumb as a box o' rocks at the best o' times. So anyways, we were both ten years old or so an' durin' the annual harvest ceremony, he snuck outta his pa's house to that there barn, right," the ferret pointed at a barn further down the track, "an' we watched the fireworks!"

"Seein' all them 'splosions up in the sky got the li'l wheels in his brain turnin', an' he figures, hey, how hard can it be to stuff a see-lindrical container fulla gasoline and send it shootin' into the sky, huh? He could scare all the kits at school, right, 'cause as we all know, bunnies is easily frightened, an' a frightened bunny is a penniless bunny, right? See his logic? Well, as it turns out, gasoline ain't exactly the best fuel to be usin' since it burns up so fast. It woulda all been good since he decided to use a length o', like, twisted-up toilet paper as a fuse an' that woulda taken forever, 'cept he decided to coat that in gasoline, too, just for good measure, right? Lucky for us, he hadn't even used gasoline, he'd somehow managed to pick up a buncha sunflower oil instead! 'Cause as we all know, if it's goopy an' yeller, it's flammable, right? 'Course, that didn't stop him from settin' fire to fifteen haystacks an' nearly burnin' down the whole dang barn! Whoo, boy, you shoulda seen the look on the constable's face when the fire bunnies showed up! I mean, heck, I actually laughed 'til I found out I'd be spendin' the night in jail with 'im. Then I actually felt kinda sorry for the poor fox. Just goes to show how perspective changes e'ry'thin', don't it?"

"Yeah yeah, great, now wouldya please _shaddap?!_ This ain't exactly a legitimate business, I got room to demand a li'l etiquette," said the recipient of the ferret's rambling monologue; a ragged weasel attired in a black shirt and jeans, speaking with a nasally accent that betrayed _his_ urbanised Rattalian heritage. The weasel walked with a limp, supporting himself with a wooden cane in one paw.

The whole scene was illuminated by two things; a flashlight being held by the ferret, and the lights of an old black station wagon. At that moment, the two of them had wandered around the back of the vehicle; the trunk was wide open, and inside was a vast number of various homemade fireworks and firework-related accessories.

"Okay, yer the boss!" the ferret replied cheerily.

"Anyway, welcome to Dribs' li'l arsenal. Got everythin' y'could possibly want. Rockets, fuses, gunpowder... you name it, I got it. Now with 100% less red tape, and 100% more effectiveness against government spy planes!"

"Holy _blackfoot_!" the ferret said, excitedly, his gaze immediately travelling to something that wasn't in the trunk at all. An enormous rocket that seemed to be crudely constructed from cardboard and duct tape, leaning up against the station wagon's open trunk. He began to reach out to it. "I want this one! How much? Will ya accept payment entirely in nickels?"

" _DON'T TOUCH THAT!_ " Dribs yelled in his face, violently batting the ferret's paw away from it. "That one ain't for sale! It's an experiment I'm woikin' on; it's unstable, untested, an' it'll probably blow us both sky high if ya let a match anywhere near it! So unless ya wanna be known as 'Travis Two-Fingers', I suggest ya be careful! Capisce?"

Travis recoiled in surprise, retracting both his paws quickly when demanded. "R-right. Gotcha."

Dribs cleared his throat and returned his attention to the stockpile in the trunk. "Right, so I know I gots a no-questions-asked policy, but ya lookin' for a rocket, I assume. They usually are."

"That's right! Y'know, or a dozen."

"I think I know exactly what ya need for your poiposes," Dribs confidently declared. He enabled his cane to rest on his elbow as he reached in to grab one of the rockets. It was much smaller than the one on the side and appeared to be constructed out of empty tin cans.

"This right 'ere is one o' my most popular creations," he said as he slid out the back of the car. "I call it the Spudnik, for two reasons: one, 'cause it can fly into space an' punch a hole straight in a spy satellite before it can take a photo of yer girlfriend in the shower, an' two, 'cause it's made outta old potato cans. It's simple, cheap, an' it turns night into day, what more d'ya want? I can give ya a full run-down o' the 'ingredients', usual stuff like gunpowder, powder paints, li'l bit o' thermite… but o' coise, yer'll be wantin' to see it in action, foist! …I could use a li'l help, though."

"Oh! Uh… sure thing!" Travis hesitantly agreed after having listened to the part about spy satellites, hooking one arm around the 'Spudnik' rocket and helping Dribs carry it further down the track.

"Sooo… what's with the cane, anyways? There some kinda interestin' backstory behind that? Ya used to be a bomb disposal weasel or somethin'?"

Dribs stopped momentarily, his eyes widening. "Uh… um… yeah, let's go with that," he said, abruptly dropping the subject.

"Dang… guess that's why you moved outta the city, huh? Too much violence," Travis theorised in an unusually solemn tone.

"Nah," Dribs said flatly. "I tried makin' an' sellin' this stuff in Zootopia. Didn't work! 'Cause it turns out that firewoiks ain't exactly the most inconspicuous things to be sellin'. 'Nippers and Dylo fiends typically don't fire flares into the sky whenever they light up!"

"…Huh. Well, I guess I sound kinda stupid when y'all put it like that…" Travis said meekly, scratching behind his head.

"Ya don't say? Anyway, d'ya think you could-"

Before Dribs could finish his sentence, he felt his decade-old phone in his pocket, vibrating against his leg. Dribs only had a split second to sigh in annoyance before it was covered-up by its equally-old ringtone. _'De-de-de dedeDEEde dede… de-de-de dede-dede DEEDEE'._

"'Scuse me one second…" he said, carelessly releasing his grip on the 'Spudnik', leaving an unprepared Travis to bear its full weight.

Dribs limped back to his stockpile as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. He groaned once more as the phone informed him who was calling; 'Cousin Duke'. He answered, holding the phone to his ear with his right paw and sat down on the lip of his car's trunk.

"Uh… hey, Dribs! It's me, your cousin!" the familiar voice of Duke Weaselton spoke on the other side.

"Oh, really? I thought it mighta been the last mammoth or somethin'. So what is it this time, cousin? Bowlin'? Video games? Weasel wardance? Whatever it is, I'm busy. An' even if I weren't, I ain't interested. In fact… this _better_ be important, 'cause there's listenin' devices on this frequency!"

"…Wh-what? Nah, nah, it's nothin' like that! Nah, this is real important! And for real this time!" Duke said, his tone turning from non-confident to confident suspiciously quickly.

"Well, what is it?! They're _listenin'_!" Dribs demanded. As he did so, he removed a match from his pocket and proceeded to curl his slinky weasel body up, enabling him to hold his cane between his feet. Biting down on the top end of the cane in his teeth, he struck his match against it, setting the match alight.

"A…a-alright, alright!" Duke continued. "So, uh… I got a bit of a problem, y'see, and, uh… I can't really go into the details, but the bottom line is, I need some money."

Dribs returned to his normal position, his cane now resting on his elbow again and the lit match in his left paw.

"Ugh… how much money are we talkin'? I can't give you a loan, if that's what y'askin'."

"Nah, nah, I don't need a loan! And you wouldn't have enough, anyways. I need 400k."

Dribs coughed. "Four hundred _what?!_ "

"Yeah, exactly! Oh yeah, and I need it in three days."

"What for?! You better not 'ave been playin' rigged card games!" Dribs said, limping forward a bit. He held the match off to his side to avoid any accidental burns.

"W-well… a-actually, it's worse than that. A lot worse. Ya see, I kinda stole a car belongin' to a psycho drug dealer. And I crashed it. And it blew up. And if I don't compensate him in three days, he'll cut my vitals off and feed 'em to a honey badger."

Dribs coughed again. " _Psycho drug dealer?!_ Oh, you are _so_ on yer own with that crap! I ain't stickin' my ass out for some idiot who don't even check their targets! _Arrivederci!_ "

"N-N-N-NO WAIT! PLEASE DON'T HANG UP!" Duke yelled on the other end, the volume of which was enough to get Dribs to hesitate. "Look, I know it sounds bad, but… how was I s'posed to know he was a psycho drug dealer?! He looks like a pencil-necked geek! His glasses alone would make a room fulla _Jails and Jackalopes_ players wanna beat him up and steal his lunch money! Anyway, that ain't important. I gotta plan to get the money, I just need some help!"

"Yeah, right. Remember what happened _last_ time you had a 'plan', Duke? An oh-so simple plan, if I recall? I think we both know that plans ain't exactly yer strong point."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but c'mon, cut me some slack! That was years ago! I've learned from my mistakes! This time, we're _really_ gonna be rakin' in the cash! And I bet Dinks and Dart are just itchin' to get back into the game! I mean, what have they even been doin' all this time? Moppin' the floor at Burger Alpha? Runnin' around mazes? Groomin' elephants? Writin' trashy romance novels?"

"Well, now that ya mention it…" Dribs attempted to interject, only to go entirely unnoticed.

"Just talk to 'em, alright? I promise ya, things'll be different this time! Trust me, when ya see my plan, ya won't regret it! Yer'll be blown away! Ya gotta get 'em to see it, at least; y'know, don't knock it 'til ya tried it! Just find 'em an' bring 'em over to my ma's house, ASAP! Seriously, cousin, if you don't help me, I'll be turned into a budget ermine coat! And my blood will be on _your_ paws! Ya won't be able to sleep at night! You'll be haunted by harrowin' visions of my face, tormentin' and torturin' ya for the rest o' yer life, and you'll have to drink seventeen gallons o' coffee to stay awake, and you'll choke on it an' die, and then I'll spend the rest of eternity pokin' yer eyes out in mustelid hell!"

"Alright, alright, _I'll do it!_ " Dribs finally belted back. "I'd launch myself there on one o' my firewoiks right now if ya'd just shaddap for five seconds!"

"Haha, I knew ya'd come through for me, cousin!" Duke said with an audible slap of the knee. "Don't worry about nothin'; I mean, you and the others won't be in any real danger! It'll be fun, it'll be a blast! Just like old times, except without the gettin' caught and spendin' a year in prison stuff! The D4 gang, together again!"

"Whatever. I'm doin' this for Aunt Livvie, not for you. An' anyway, I thought it was the Quad-Ds."

"Nah, it was definitely the D4 gang."

"That was just what _you_ called it. I suggested Quad-Ds 'cause it sounded like 'Quaddies', which sounds a lot like 'Squaddies', givin' it a military sorta theme."

"Yeah, but we're not in the army, are we? We pulled scores!"

"Uggghhh… yeah, I knew that, but yer not s'posed to take it literally, are ya?!"

What Dribs had failed to notice throughout the entire conversation, however, was the fact that the lit match in his paw was hovering quite close to the fuse on his experimental cardboard rocket. As he'd been chatting away, the fuse had been lit and was rapidly getting shorter and shorter, and Duke's irritating voice had been enough to distract him from the sound of the burning. Travis didn't notice either, occupied as he was trying to set up the 'Spudnik' rocket he'd been given.

It wasn't long before the rocket went off with a shriek, launching hundreds of feet into the air. This, in turn, made _Dribs_ shriek and reflexively jump at Travis, who was in the process of dusting his paws after finally getting the Spudnik upright. Dribs knocked Travis down to the ground, who knocked the Spudnik down to the ground, creating a small cloud of dust in their wake. Hard of walking as he was, Dribs could only lie there atop the groaning ferret, watching as his experiment flew away in an alarming downwards arc.

And then it hit the barn.

Less than a second after the rocket had crashed through the wooden roof, the entire top half of the barn was blown away from the force of an enormous fireball, producing a blinding orange light that made both mustelids shield their eyes. The deafening explosion was forceful enough to propel flaming bits of wood all the way over to Dribs and Travis' position, scattering around them like thrown pebbles, except wooden and dangerous to touch.

"Awwww shucks…" Travis squeaked out. "I guess that's what them philosophy types call karma…"

Dribs, meanwhile, was too busy patting the ground beside him to listen. Soon he recovered his phone, which he was amazed to discover hadn't been broken. He briefly patted himself on the back – figuratively, of course – for having the foresight to buy an older, sturdier phone.

"Cousin?! _Cousin!_ What the hell is happenin'?! Y'alright, cousin?!" Duke had been hollering on the other end.

"Uh… y-yeah, I'm fine. There's been a li'l… accident. Listen, I'll do that thing for ya. I-in fact, I'll woik on it _right now_. It'll take my mind off the police investigation…"

"Huh?! What police investigation?!"

"Um… uh… there'snotimeexplainokaygottago!" Dribs rattled off so fast it was almost unintelligible.

" _What?!_ Couldya repeat th-" Duke tried to say, before Dribs hung up on him.

* * *

 _Yyyyyep, here's another chapter! Not much to say about it. I swear my author's notes have progressively been getting shorter._

 _Something that should be noted; Dribs is technically not an OC. He was originally one of the suspects from the mobile game, Zootopia: Crime Files. Those of you who have played or heard of it may also recognise Detective Oates from the last chapter as another character from the game. I say **technically** not an OC because they're typically not around for very long and what personality they have is only the sort that can be easily conveyed with their limited appearance, which makes them a small step above 'blank slate' characters like, say, Jack Savage, but not fleshed-out enough to be anything else. So for those tropers among you, they'd be 'OC Stand-Ins'._

 _Oh yes, and I don't know if he's getting sick of being mentioned in these author's notes or not, but 'Feral Dream' and Burger Alpha both belong to Berserker._


	3. Episodes From Within the Tall Grass

_Hello again. I don't usually put author's notes before the chapter, but on this occasion I'm making an exception. This is to provide some information; first of all, pretty much this entire chapter takes a break from the main Duke-centric plot to focus on a number of sub-plots revolving around different characters, if you're wondering where the hell Duke is. Secondly, this is also by far the longest chapter I've ever written, and it goes over a lot of stuff. Without wishing to spoil, all I'll say is that you might want to get comfortable before reading.  
_

* * *

 _ **Episodes From Within the Tall Grass**_

"Ah! Detective Oates. Exactly who I wanted to see."

The horse had risen from his seat once the enormous Cape buffalo in ZPD uniform had walked into the office, taking a moment to straighten his tie and suspenders. He didn't need to change his expression, however; most expressions in Oates' repertoire were largely identical.

"Please, sit down," the buffalo said once he'd shut the door behind him, his name tag identifying him as 'Bogo'. The stallion complied immediately, sitting back down, though he made sure to keep his back straight and his chair tucked in properly.

Bogo himself sat down on the opposite side of the desk shortly afterwards. He took a different approach to seating etiquette, slouching forward with his elbows on the desk, taking a moment to wipe some rheum from out of his eyes.

"Ughh…" he groaned. " _Finally,_ some peace and quiet."

A silence followed for a few moments, during which time Bogo idly tapped his hooves against the desk, and Oates surveyed the desk itself. It was in a rather poor state, all things considered. The detective noted that Bogo had made an effort to stack all of his loose files to one side, but the stack was poorly-aligned and had papers sticking out the side. On top of that, there was still a ring of dry coffee on his side of the desk, some distance away from the mug of coffee that Oates had brought in himself. Coupled with his current mood, it was clear to him that the Chief was tired and overworked, to the point that it was even affecting his usual perfectionism.

Oates opened his mouth to offer a remark to that effect, but Bogo held up one hoof to stop him. "Don't say anything. I already know you know," he stopped to sigh, pinching the top of his snout. "I've just had a meeting with mayor Otterton, and she's got some… _'interesting'_ ideas on how to resolve the size gap. She's seriously considering offering a seat on the municipal advisory board to Mr. Big. Do I even _need_ to tell you what's wrong with that idea? A known criminal on the city council!" he slammed a hoof on the desk. "Unbelievable. Even the _mayor_ is falling for his 'hero to the rodent community' lie. What we _should_ be doing is cleaning up the Little Rodentia PD! It's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that the entire precinct is deeper in his pockets than an elephant's last peanut. Giving them more autonomy is the _opposite_ of what we need right now!"

"An entire generation of the city administration has been run by large-mammals like us," Oates responded, shrugging. "Bellwether didn't do much to, uh… endear anyone to the idea of a small-mammal mayor. Otterton's been backed into a corner. It's wrong, but sometimes when the horse is injured on the way to the waterin' hole, you're gonna have to tie it to the neck of its rival."

Bogo sighed once more. "I know; that's exactly what she told me. To be honest with you, Quail, I wish I – _we_ – had paid more attention to Little Rodentia. If I hadn't been such a fool, I could have caught it in the bud. I was blind. 'Big handles big, small handles small'," he said, comparing his hands. "It seemed so obvious when I first sat in this chair; what could go wrong? There just… there _has_ to be another way. A way that doesn't involve giving actual political influence to a crime lord!"

"It's not fair, but there's not a lot you coulda done, chief," Oates attempted to reassure his boss, leaning forward and placing his own elbows on the desk. "Mr. Big has kept a tight bridle on Little Rodentia for nearly seven decades, and countin'. A strong pedigree stays strong by consistently beatin' its opponents on the track that's life."

"I blame Officer Hopps," Bogo continued, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hooves together. "I think her relentless optimism has gotten to me. Perhaps it's a good thing that she's on vacation this week. You can set me straight again. Old cops like you and me, we've been doing this for… how many years? We know how mammals truly work; what makes them tick. We're realists. I was hoping that would rub off on her, especially considering how much she idolises you, but that doesn't seem to have been the case."

"What about Officer Wilde?" Oates asked, scratching behind his ear with his hoof.

"What about him? He's a nuisance," Bogo folded his arms. "A strangely _effective_ nuisance, but a nuisance nonetheless. I'm just glad he's off sick. Without him or Hopps, perhaps I'll get through just one day in this Precinct without someone distracting me with smart-arse sarcastic quips and cheesy puns!"

Bogo stopped briefly to lean forward again, resting his arms on the desk again. "Of course, without them, it means you'll have to take a more hooves-on approach to your next case. I trust this old horse can still learn new tricks."

"No old horse can learn new tricks, chief. But if he's mastered all the old tricks, he doesn't need to learn any new ones," Oates said, offering a brief smile.

"That's good to hear, because we're dealing with a right slippery little bastard," Bogo began, reaching to the top of his file stack and forcefully swiping the one on the top. The stack wobbled slightly, but stopped short of collapsing outright. "I'll leave you to figure out who."

Bogo handed the file over to the detective, who quickly laid it on the desk and opened it up. On one side, a collection of photographs taken from a security camera in Sahara Square, depicting the theft of a silver sports car the night before by a shifty-looking weasel. Oates recognised the meter maid in the photographs; Officer Mabel Cloverfield. A ZPD veteran of up to sixty years; she was old even when Oates himself had joined up. He understood that she refused to retire and instead volunteered for parking duty out of her commitment to the community. Oates had to admire her spirit, but was ashamedly not surprised that the senile old goat could offer no witness testimony on the incident. If it weren't for the security cameras, it was likely they would have nothing on the car's owner.

On the other side, he saw a photocopied page from the ZPD's criminal database. The mugshot at the top of the page in question depicted the same shifty-looking weasel from the photos, but in close-up, holding a board reading 'WESILTONE, DANTE'.

Species: Least Weasel. Known aliases: 'Duke Weaselton'. Known affiliates: Doriano 'Dribs' Wesiltone, Gerald 'Dinks' Dinka, D'Artagnan 'Dart' Pettigrew. Record: first arrested at the age of ten, for shoplifting – with a note stating that he'd received cautions for up to five separate counts of shoplifting beforehand. Was arrested again, after a sizable gap, just three years ago for attempted robbery in the second degree, and again just last year for combined petty theft/resisting arrest.

"Duke Weaselton… I remember him," Oates said, looking back at Bogo. "He was the one who stole the Night Howlers for the ex-mayor, wasn't he?"

"That's right. What you might not remember was that he plea bargained away the charges with help from one of Bellwether's lawyers… a fat cat called Robin Runne, if I recall. Got his sentence reduced to just three months. I had known right away that something strange was happening, since there was no way a two-bit crook like Duke could afford such a good lawyer. But even after the full implications of his theft came to light, they couldn't re-try him thanks to double jeopardy."

Bogo leaned in further and began to point at the desk, tapping it for emphasis. "Everyone who was involved in that conspiracy got put away for what they did, except him. Which makes him an _embarrassing_ loose end. You understand?"

"So he's high-priority, then. The nail that got loose. I got it," Oates said with a nod. "Least we can do is snag him for grand theft auto and reckless drivin'."

"There's more to it than that, however," Bogo continued, his brow furrowing. "Turn the page over, and you'll see why."

Oates did exactly that, and even a stoic such as himself couldn't stop his eyes widening at the sight. It was another page from the criminal database, the mugshot displaying the unperturbed face of a well-dressed mink. His board read 'MINSKO, DMITRY'.

The page was a lot sparser than Duke's, overall. Species: Bearuskan Mink. No known aliases, no known affiliates. Has only been convicted once, for smuggling real-dairy yogurt into the country a full decade ago, for which he was fined 200,000 dollars.

Oates didn't need Bogo to tell him that Minsko's involvement in the case was a cause for concern, however. While most mammals knew him as the odd owner of the Orange Lightning nightclub – a popular hangout for the mustelids of Otterdam – he was suspected of having his claws in all manner of pies. Pies of blood and money. He was arrested not too long ago on suspicion of transporting a vast amount of catnip, Oates remembered, but the charges were dropped because a key witness 'fell down an elevator shaft' before he could make it to trial.

"I think I know what this is…" Oates began, placing the folder on the desk. "Chance union between dam and sire. Minsko's made an enemy somewhere, and Duke was the instrument of his vengeance, like a long-distance spur. The question is, _who's_ the enemy?"

"Well…" Bogo began to say, sitting up and making an exaggerated 'I dunno' gesture, with his hooves out. "It _could_ just be a coincidence."

Oates leaned back and clasped his own hooves together. "With all due respect, chief, I'm a detective. I'm-"

"Not allowed to believe in coincidences, yes, I know, I've seen that movie," Bogo cut in, looking down and circling his hooves around. "I should've known the futility of suggesting such an idea to you…" he muttered under his breath.

"Never mind," the chief continued, sitting up. "Connection or no connection, you _need_ to bring Duke in. Give this department some proper closure. I _want_ to say it'll be easy, but I don't like to tempt fate. We know exactly how slippery this weasel is. We know where he lives, but odds are high he's not there anymore. Regardless, your best bet is to start there."

Oates began to brush his chin, looking up at the ceiling. "…The car he stole. Minsko's car. Tell me more about it."

"Hmm?"

"Something wasn't normal about it. McHorn told me about the punishment it took, and that was _before_ it exploded for no reason. Had all the signs of a racer loaded with steroids."

"Well…" Bogo began, brushing his own chin. "Forensics picked through what little was left pretty thoroughly. The car had been reinforced in… various ways. The cause for the explosion is still up in the air, but they have a theory it was the result of a ruptured hydrogen fuel cell."

"Sounds like Minsko was preparin' for this exact thing," Oates said, looking Bogo straight in the eyes. "There's definitely somethin' more to this. Could be the start of a full-on mob war. This is a nail. It only takes the nail to lose the shoe, and it only takes the shoe to lose the horse, and it only takes the horse to lose the war."

Bogo once more leaned forward and sighed, dragging a hoof down his face. "Well… I suppose there's really no point in trying to convince you otherwise. I know you too well. Do what you like, but just _remember to find the weasel!_ " Bogo re-iterated, pointing at the horse.

Oates nodded, closing the folder and placing it under-arm. "Understood, chief." As he took his mug of coffee and began to leave, however, Bogo held up a hoof once more to stop him in his tracks.

"Wait! Before you go, there's something else I need to request of you."

Oates' ears perked up as he listened, sitting back down.

Bogo cleared his throat and once more rested his elbows on the desk, hooves clasped. "How do I put this… the other officers in the precinct, they've been asking me to ask you to be, um… well, they think you're a little, uh…" Bogo stopped to wiggle his hooves in front of his snout, "different."

Oates raised a brow at this comment. "I don't know what you mean," he said, as he raised his now-cold mug of coffee to take a sip. The mug itself was branded with the words 'WORLD'S LOOSEST CAN_ON', with one of the letters worn away by age.

"Well, they, uh… they've been saying that you're a bit 'opaque' with how you explain things, and have a habit of… um…"

Before Bogo could finish his sentence, however, the buzzer on the desk's intercom went off, immediately attracting his attention.

"Uh, chief?" a high-pitched voice said on the other end. "There's a corporate type lady here. Says she needs to have a word with you."

Bogo slammed a hoof on the receiver button. "Clawhauser, I'm in the middle of a discussion with Oates; can't it wait?!"

"Umm…" Clawhauser paused for a few seconds, "she says it's important. Like, _really_ important."

Bogo grunted in irritation, returning his attention to the horse. "You know what, forget about what I was saying, it wasn't _that_ important. Just get to work, and maybe if we're lucky we'll talk about it later" he said, literally waving him off. Any other mammal might have found this rude, but not Oates. He simply nodded and did as he was told, standing up from his chair and taking another sip of his coffee, reaching for the door with his elbow.

"Alright, send her in," Bogo said, going back to the intercom.

"R-right. Well, she's a seal, so it's gonna take her a while to get to the office…"

Bogo slammed a hoof onto his face. _"Of course_ she's a seal _._ Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? _"_

"I didn't think it had any relevance."

* * *

 _ **Earlier that morning…**_

The Hamsda showroom stood proud on the corner of the crossroads, the sun rising over the urbanised environs of Otterdam, on the threshold between Downtown and Savannah Central. The building itself resembled a sort of oversized, metallic hamster cage, with the gaps filled in by glass.

Fittingly, the interior of the building was just as brightly-lit by nature, if not more so. Almost every surface was shining white, from the granite-style walls and the tiled floors. The presence of all the brand-new Hamsda automobiles certainly did nothing to diminish the effect. Cars of all stripes were arranged on the floor; sports cars, sedans, pickups, SUVs. Most of them dull colours such as black or grey, and in sizes ranging from ultra-large to intermediate; all the small models were upstairs.

On the ground floor, the showroom was divided into two sections by a collection of rooms in the middle, with a reception desk at the front. A door behind the desk opened and closed, and looking from the side of the desk the customers would be approaching from, it'd appear as though the door had done so by itself.

On the other side, obscured by the desk, a raccoon had just entered with a haughty expression on his muzzle. The raccoon dusted the cuffs on his fancy, light blue suit, straightened his flowery tie, and licked a finger to better cultivate the pencil moustache he'd made out of his whiskers. He rubbed down the label he wore on his jacket, which read 'Dealership Manager – Phil'.

Looking up at the empty desk chair, his expression turned to one of irritation. He looked down to check his watch – it was nearly half past eight. He looked up at the clock behind him and confirmed that it was, indeed, half past eight. He proceeded to wander around the corner, surveying the empty showroom. Nobody there. He repeated the process with the other corner. Nobody there, either.

"Slackers… where the hell is everyone?" Phil muttered to himself. They were supposed to be opening shop in less than ten minutes. Not even the security guard had arrived. This was bad news if anyone tried to ram-raid the place. It wasn't something most car dealers worried about, he figured, but with a reputation like Phil's, it was different. He began to tug at his increasingly-hot collar, finding himself sweating a little. He'd already suffered fifteen of them at his old used dealership before he'd moved up the food chain, as it were.

It was then that he caught a look at the trash can behind the desk. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to remember what the therapist told him; 'go to your happy place'. Trash cans. All those days spent rummaging through them, finding diamonds. Appliances in working condition, ultra-large battery hand fans, mouse cars that had been mistaken for toys… heck, maybe there was something in that very trash can.

Great, it happened again. Phil slapped himself on the temples. He'd already triple-checked this one trash can. Today. And it wasn't even lunchtime yet. There was _nothing there_. Perhaps his therapist wasn't finished after all…

Suddenly, however, he was jumped by a knock on the showroom's front door. The shock almost made him slip up onto his tail, but he managed to retain his balance. "About time," he said, once more straightening his tie. He put on his haughty, half-lidded eyes again, ready to give a lecture to whichever one of his employees had arrived on the importance of being punctual.

As Phil emerged from behind the desk, however, he stopped dead in his tracks and opened his eyes wide upon noticing who had knocked. It was _not_ someone who worked for him.

Instead, he saw a tiny fennec fox attired in a black bowling shirt with a red stripe, his paws in the pockets of his shorts and his eyes obscured by dark sunglasses. He turned to face Phil from behind the glass door, tapping his foot against the ground.

Phil immediately put on a smile and walked over. Removing the front door keys from his pocket, he unlocked the door – using the lock placed further down, of course.

"Yo," the fennec said in an unusually deep voice. Phil was not surprised, however, for he had met this tiny mammal before.

" _Finnick!_ My main mammal, my ace in the hole!" he returned the greeting, offering his paw for a shake, which the fennec graciously returned. "So, uh… what's up? Normally I wouldn't answer the door for a customer before openin' time, but… well, if _you're_ here, there's gotta be some 'extenuating circumstances', right?"

"Oh, y'know how it is…" Finnick answered, shrugging. "Thought I'd finally settled into a semi-legit livin', then my ol' partner runs off with a cotton-tailed hick to join the fuzz, leavin' me high an' dry; so it's back to runnin' odd jobs."

"Sorry to hear that, Fin. That's exactly how I felt once I lost my license to practice law," he said, stopping to sigh and shake his head in sympathy. "I'm afraid I can't give you any work here; my new, uh… paymasters keep a much closer eye on how I run things. I mean, if I got any _vacancies_ , you can have 'em. They just wouldn't be your usual kinda work. Lots more red tape."

"Nah, don't worry 'bout me, Phil. Things are tight over here. I got me a new job workin' for a mammal you mighta heard of. Dmitry Minsko."

Phil couldn't help but tug at his collar again. "Dmitry Minsko, huh? He's the, uh… Bearuskan mink who runs that nightclub, ain't he? What's it called? Red lightnin'?"

" _Orange_ lightnin'."

Phil slapped his paw against his forehead. "Haha, of course! Musta thought it was 'red' 'cause he's Bearuskan. Y'know, communism. Red. All that."

"Yeah, I get it," Finnick said harshly, which put a stop to Phil's jocular attitude very quickly. "Anyway, I ain't here to make small talk. I'm here on business. I don't think I introduced you to my new partner here."

"What new partner?" Phil said before his gaze idly travelled to the left. He almost flinched upon seeing the larger mammal standing right next to Finnick, having somehow evaded his notice the entire time.

The other mammal wasn't enormous, but still taller than him and _much_ taller than Finnick. He was a miniature wild boar, both chubby and muscular in build. He wore a shabby tank top and a red pair of sweatpants, along with a puffy red down vest and a baseball cap with a stylised fox's face on it. He wore what Phil believed was termed 'bling-bling'; a lot of golden chains. At this moment, he looked down at the raccoon with an intimidating squint, his eyes and snout shadowed by his hat. More alarmingly, he held a large crowbar in his hooves.

"Hello… e-heh," Phil said, turning back to the fennec. "So… this is your new partner, huh? What's his name? And why's he menacingly palming that crowbar?"

Finnick took his paws out of his pockets and clasped them in front of his chest. "I'm glad you asked! Phil, this is Razor. We met at Verdant Corrals; used to trade bits o' junk an' the occasional nugget of useful intelligence across the fence separatin' the pred an' prey yards. He just got outta the joint a couple weeks ago, so I put in a good word with the boss for him."

"'Sup, trash panda?" Razor spoke in a voice that, while certainly deep, seemed oddly 'average' compared to Finnick's. Phil frowned but was otherwise able to brush off the 'trash panda' remark; it was one of those things that was only shared among raccoons, but the way he said it indicated he didn't know that. Plus, he was bigger than him and had a crowbar.

Fin turned to address the boar. "Raze, this here's Phil Rasconovitch, raccoon o' many things to many mammals. I used to help 'im dig through the trash when he was still called 'Phelonious Phil'. As y'all can see, he's moved up the food chain since then."

"In a manner of speaking, but I haven't forgotten my humble roots!" Phil said, proudly standing up and straightening his tie. "That doesn't explain why he's got a crowbar, though."

"Oh yeah, 'bout that," Fin said, turning back to the boar. "Raze, tell the gentlemammal what landed yo' ass in the pound."

"Nine counts o' _vandalism!_ Each more than forty-thou's worth, pred!" Razor yelled, grinning in an almost childlike way.

"Raze, _shut up!_ " Finnick said, anxiously. "We don't need the entire freakin' _district_ to know about yo' psychopathic-ass tendencies!"

Razor snorted, looking off to the side. "You asked, I answered!"

"I know, but- gah, forget it!" Finnick said.

Razor's sudden increase in volume had been enough to get Phil to flinch once more, and he found himself sweating under the collar again. His eyes began to dart around. "Uh… okay. This hasn't got anythin' to do with the car I sold Mr. Minsko, has it? I mean, as far as I know, all the extras he asked for were fitted and the deal went off without a hitch! Hell, the top tanukis at Hamsda HQ even got me some extra commission for sellin' a hydrogen car!"

"We ain't here 'bout the car… though it might interest you to know that it got stolen. An' blown up."

Razor chuckled loudly. "Y'all shoulda seen the news last night! It got blown up, a'ight! Sahara Square was like Founder's Day with extra Marula Liquour, pred!"

" _Shut! Up!_ " Finnick hissed under his breath, looking back at the boar.

Phil rubbed the back of his head, looking at the ground. "Ohh… glad he already paid off his deposit. This ain't gonna be good if I wanna sell more hydrogen cars in the future. I did warn him, those fuel cells can rupture pretty easily when mishandled. Hopefully the news doesn't spread around too much."

"Yeah… anyway, we're here on an errand for 'im. Mr. Minsko told us that you struck a deal with a friend of his. A powerful friend. Let's call him… Antonov." Finnick said, folding his arms.

"Oh… _ohhh_ …" Phil said after a pause as he realised who exactly Fin was talking about. "Crap, I… I forgot… I'm s'posed to pay him today, aren't I?"

"You catch on quick," Finnick said, adjusting his shades.

" _Yeah!_ So yo' ass better cough up that paper, or me an' Fin are gonna get Stone Age on yo' trash panda ass!" Razor yelled again, forcefully holding one of his hooves out.

"Raze, how many freakin' times do I have to tell ya?!" Finnick yelled back, forcefully shoving the boar's hoof away. The boar simply snorted and indignantly looked away. Finnick turned back to the now-trembling raccoon. "Sorry 'bout that. He's still gettin' re-adjusted to life on the outside."

"R-right…" Phil began, now anxiously tugging at his cuffs. "Well, I'm certainly _capable_ of paying you today, it's just… I don't _have_ that amount of money on me in cash right now. I mean, unless you take credit, eh? Eh?" Phil held his paws out, as if waiting for a laugh. He soon gave up. "A-anyway, I can definitely get you the money, I just need to go the bank first. It might take a while, I gotta set up shop and wait for everyone to arrive. I can't just leave the showroom empty! I could get in a lotta trouble. I-I mean, I'm already payin' you outta my own pocket so my paymasters don't ask any questions. So, how about you leave for a li'l bit, a-and come back later when I've had time to go to the bank? I-I mean, you can trust me, Finnick? Just this once? For old time's sake?"

"Listen, you dumpster-dwellin' ass-clown!" Razor cut in with a point, "Antonov's been lenient enough with yo' stingy ass as it is! So you better scrounge for cash in the garbage out back, or else-"

Finnick didn't even bother verbally scolding Razor that time; he merely held up his paw to stop him talking. Though it still didn't stop him from snorting indignantly. "Unlike my overzealous partner here, I got no doubt that you got that money in the bank. But it might be wise to have some kinda advance, just to be safe. You understand this is nothin' personal, it's just to provide some assurance that you're a mammal of yo' word. A businessmammal like you'd understand; conduct is everythin'."

"A-an advance? Sure, I got some cash on me!" Phil said, pulling out his wallet. The two debt collectors immediately noticed the large, folded-up bill sticking out the top. The raccoon pulled it out and unfolded it, revealing that it had been folded over three times, and was in actuality an ultra-large two-hundred dollar bill; big enough to roll the tiny fox in.

As the giant bill effectively acted as a wall between him and Phil, Finnick handed it off to Razor. Resting his crowbar on his shoulder, the boar forcefully took the bill and began to sniff and snort it.

"Yeah, seems legit to me, pred," Razor declared. Finnick took it back and folded it back up.

"'Kay. That settles it, then. With any other mammal, Minsko and Antonov might not like us bein' this accommodatin'; but because I like you, Phil, I'm givin' you the benefit o' the doubt. We'll be back in three hours, an' we expect to see the rest by then. Comprende?"

"What?"

Finnick sighed. " _Understand?_ "

"Everythin' except 'Comprende'."

"Good enough for us. Let's go, Raze."

With the cash in hand, Finnick waved for his boar companion to follow as he crossed the road. "Oh yeah, an' I'll be expectin' a li'l interest!" Razor said, pointing back at the raccoon before he followed.

At this time of morning, the road was thankfully sparse enough for them to not have to stop before they reached their vehicle; Finnick's trademark red van, with the elaborate mural on the side always putting him in mind of the cover of an amateur heavy metal band's first album.

Finnick was easily able to fit into the driver's seat, having had it modified to accommodate his height. Razor, on the other hand, had to put some effort into squeezing himself into the passenger seat, making the seat and the doorframe creak with his shifting weight, until finally his ears and his hat were being squashed by the roof of the van.

Razor shut the door and caught his breath. "Fin, when are you gonna buy a bigger van?"

" _Raze!_ " Finnick suddenly raised his voice, slamming his paws onto the steering wheel. "What the freakin' hell were you thinkin'?! You said you were gonna be a li'l more _subtle_ this time!"

"Whaddya talkin' about, pred? I never said that."

"I'm talkin' 'bout how you keep runnin' yo' stupid mouth when it ain't necessary! I told you; I do the talkin', you just stand there an' look intimidatin'! It's called a team dynamic!"

"Well, sor- _RY_ , boss!" Razor yelled at a high enough volume to warrant an ear-shielding from Finnick. "I didn't know I was takin' some workplace ethics course, now! Just relax, pred! That trash panda ain't got nothin' on us!"

"That ain't the point!" Finnick said, forcefully removing his sunglasses. "We _both_ know that one day, some mammal's gonna come along with the cojones to call the cops an' say 'uh… yeah, officer, it was some tiny pred called Fin an' his dumb, porky-ass friend, Raze!" Finnick said in a mocking tone, putting his paw to his ear like a phone. "They're easy to find, just keep yo' ears open for the piggy givin' a freakin' sermon on behalf of the church o' bein' an uncontrollable maniac!'"

"Will you _stop_ callin' me 'porky'?! Try holdin' me back all y'like, but I'm a _real_ pred, pred! Don't y'all forget that!"

"Oh yeah, sorry, I stand corrected," Finnick said with an obviously fake chuckle, brushing the fur on his head. "The church o' bein' a _delusional_ , uncontrollable maniac! Take a look in the mirror, Raze!" Finnick pointed at him, "you're a boar an' you can't even eat fish without chokin' on it! You ain't a 'real pred', whatever the hell that's s'posed to mean, and you never will be! Just get over it an' move on!"

"Hey, _screw you_ , Fin!" Razor bellowed, smacking the dashboard to emphasise his point. "You just jealous 'cause I'm taller _and_ smarter than yo' midget ass! We both know that you an' your small-mammal complex can do a lotta talkin', but I'm the one who does all the walkin'! I mean, you just mindlessly follow orders like a sweater-farm! Me, I'm the one with the _dreams!"_ he continued, patting himself on the chest with both hooves. "That's what bein' a real pred's all about; dreams!"

Finnick once more recovered from the yelling, scratching the inside of his ear. "Okay, fine, whatever you say. It's too early in the mornin' to be arguin' over inconsequential crap. We just gotta… find somethin' to do while we wait for Phil to get us the money."

"Hmm…" Razor turned to face the front, rubbing one of his boar tusks in thought. After a few seconds, his eyes widened and he raised a hoof-finger. "I know! We should go see the Hutch Sisters!"

"Who?" Finnick asked, one brow raised above the other.

"A'ight; you ever hearda Primal Jazz? That new blend o' Night Howler that's takin' Bushveld University by storm?"

"Oh, y'mean that crap I keep tellin' you to knock off? The crap that's been affectin' what little judgement you got left? Nope, never paid it any mind!"

"Oh, hardy-freakin'-har!" Razor said, slapping his knee; or at least attempting to, given the space issues. "Anyways, the Hutch Sisters are the ones who make it; coupla cottontail college dropouts from Great Badgertain. They on Minsko's payroll, an' I already got me some more lined up; it's all prepaid stuff, real nice. They headquartered in the ol' Bellwether Wools plant by the Savannah Harbour, in Haymarket."

"Haymarket?!" Finnick said. Before he could object any further to having to drive halfway across town – and through South Central Gnu York, at that – he sighed and pinched the top of his muzzle. "A'ight, fine. Not like we got anythin' better to do, an' if I said no you'd probably run off by yo'self and get turned into bacon for doin' somethin' stupid. But we ain't pissin' around!" Finnick raised his voice, starting the van's engine with one paw and firmly gripping the steering wheel with the other. "We're goin' in, you get your crap, and we're gettin' back here! I don't wanna be late again!"

" _Whoooo_ , good thinkin'!" Razor said, clucking his tongue. "Don't wanna be late! Or else that musty communist we work for might slice our heads off with the weak-ass five-dollar bills he pays us with!"

"Razor, you'll shut yo' ass up right now, or _I'll_ be the one turnin' yo' ass into bacon!" Finnick growled out.

"Okay, okay, _sorry…_ loud-mouthed midget…"

* * *

It goes without saying that Zootopia is a massive monstrosity of a metropolis. As such, every part of it buzzes with activity, and not even in the shadiest nooks and crannies does this activity falter. Of course, in these shady nooks and crannies, activities of a rather more clandestine nature is allowed to proceed.

For one such shady nook or cranny, this place was rather well-lit. It was a rather large, one-floor room just below a massive series of skylights, beaming a lot of sunlight into the room. Once upon a time, it was likely an administrative cubicle farm, but time had taken its toll. The walls were chipped and patchy, and the floor was bare, rough wooden boards. There was a very good reason for the skylights; or a bad one, depending on your stance on drug control.

The skylights shined down on three rows of metal tables that traversed the full length of the room. The tables themselves were moulded into deep trays filled with soil, and out of this soil grew bright purple flowers. Underneath the tables were crisscrossing plastic tubes piped into holes drilled into the bottom; these pipes also traversed the length of the room, leading into some metallic vats which were currently filled with a viscous, oil-like substance of the same purple colour, the thickness of which caused an almost musky smell to waft around the room.

In the tattered remains of an old break room connected to the rest of the office, one of the plants' caretakers was busy at work. A rather short, skinny, female lop-eared white rabbit, who evidently shopped for clothes at a store meant for bigger mammals. She wore a pair of grey sweatpants and a tie-dye shirt that sagged a great amount, and a purple woollen hat which was almost pulled over her eyes. She didn't so much walk around as she did shamble, and at that moment she had a small diluted locoweed – or 'Dylo' – joint stuck to the side of her rabbit buck teeth.

She was currently in the old kitchen, which was now filled with a number of modern chemistry devices, two of which being a pair of big metal cylinders on the broken tiled floor – giant pressure cookers, one of them closed, the other one open.

Even in her intoxicated, seemingly-unfocused state, it was clear she knew what she was doing. She had previously poured some of viscous, oily substance into one of the pressure cookers, diluting it using a chemical agent which resembled water. This had the side effect of turning it completely white and watery once it had boiled over, being almost indistinguishable from milk.

At that moment, she had managed to pour the milk-like concoction onto a special tray, with a hundred, equally-large squares filled up. She was busy adding some finishing touches; a bottle of bright green food colouring in paw, she was slightly hunched-over, squeezing drops of the colouring into the squares of liquid, turning each one a vibrant lime green.

Amongst the various other chemistry paraphernalia on the counter were a pair of rabbit-sized oven gloves. Once the white bunny was finished with the food colouring, she slid it off to one side and, wearing the oven gloves, took hold of the tray and summoned every bit of her dwindling focus that she could as she shuffled over to a massive oven at the other end of the kitchen. Opening the cover with one paw, she was blasted by a wave of excruciating heat and orange light, prompting her to see through some of her drug-induced daze and retain some bonus focus.

She slid the baking tray into the oven before inspecting another, identical baking tray just below it. Thanks to her heat-induced focus rush, she could tell that the intense heat of the oven had caused the green substance to harden into a cookie-like consistency. This prompted her to take hold of the searing-hot tray with her protected paws and place it on the counter to cool down. Closing the oven, she wasted no time removing the oven gloves and taking another drag from her joint.

"Aaaahhhgggg…" she exhaled quite loudly, clearly satisfied to have gotten that task out the way.

Rummaging around under her oversized tie-dye shirt to pull up her equally-oversized sweatpants, she shambled out of the lab and out of the indoor farm, past a number of makeshift wooden boards covering up what would have been interior windows, and into an adjacent two-story room.

This room appeared to be an old production floor of some description; the floor was still rough boards, but the walls were bare bricks. The offices-turned-chemical garden was connected to this room via a rusty steel platform, from which the wooden floor could be reached from a simple flight of stairs. On the opposite side of the room were a number of very tall windows; one could tell that the windows were barred from the outside, preventing unwanted entry, assuming any mammal outside could climb the required two stories from the ground.

"H-hey… hey, Trix! Trix! Hey… Beatrix!" the small rabbit said in a slow, rambling fashion, clearly rather unconcerned about everything; clashing with her middle-class Badgish accent, an indication that she came from 'across the pond'.

"What?" said 'Trix'. "Bianca, one can only hope this is of earth-shattering importance, 'cause I'm a little occupied here."

Beatrix was sitting in a huge, fluffy beanbag on the ground floor of the room, which was evidently some kind of living quarters. The beanbag and a number of comfy – if rather cheap-looking – pieces of furniture surrounded an equally-cheap floor rug and a not-so-cheap television set, all of it illuminated by the big windows, which gave Bianca a good look at Beatrix.

While she had the same white fur, the same lop ears, and was only slightly taller than Bianca, she was notably much, much _wider_ and had a much greater girth, a sign of a liberal approach to eating vast portions of food. She wore a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and, at the present time, a set of pastel-pink pyjamas. The t-shirt component notably had the words _'I'm late for a very important date!'_ written on it in fancy lettering.

" _Weeeeell…?_ " 'Trix' said, cocking her head to the side, making it sink into her triple-chin. Her voice was not at all 'husky' like one might expect; it instead sounded like Bianca if her voice had been put on fast-forward.

"I, uh… I just put a new batch of _Jaaaaazz_ in the oven." Bianca finally answered. "Last one's cooling, and, uh… oh yeah, got more of the solution boiling. The 'solution to all our problems.'" she said, slowly waving her paw around as she did so, for no real reason besides habit. "So, uh… _wha gwa'an_ down there, anyways?"

Trix sighed and rubbed her nose, pushing her glasses up her face. "I'm painting watercolours. What does it _look_ like I'm doing, B? I'm counting this stupid bloody money! You can give me a paw, if you like. Assuming you can stay awake…" she said, twitching for a moment.

By this point, Bianca was halfway shambled down the stairs, and took another look at a small table in front of Beatrix; a table which was almost completely covered in stacks of cash in intermediate-size bills, big enough to fit neatly into the hand of a fox. And that wasn't even all of them; there were more stacks of cash in a duffle bag right next to Beatrix.

"50… 100… 120… 170… 220… 320… 440… 450… 500… 550…" she counted off one stack of cash in her paws, squinting her eyes very close indeed to make sure were no errors.

"C'mon _gyaaal_ , you've been counting that stuff all night. Us bunnies, we're not supposed to be nocturnal. It's not… _natural_ , ya know." Bianca said, who had finally shambled her way down the stairs and had was coming up behind her sister.

" _Riiiight._ Well, if you had gotten a bloody money counting machine like I told you, then I could have finished _eons_ ago. Instead you come back half-conscious at the height of midnight with a bag of sodding fertiliser! Egh… 600… 800… wait, or was it 780? Uggghhhh… _droppings_ , you made me lose count! Now I have to start _all_ the _way_ from the _bottom_ of the _stack!_ " she said, poking the side of her beanbag with each word.

"Oh… right. Sorry." Bianca said, wandering over to a nearby sofa and crashing onto it, taking a moment to effectively drape her body on it before she took another drag. "You should take a break, sis. For real, ya know? I mean, you might get some of that… sleep deprivation, like."

"Yes, that means a lot coming from _you_ , _Sister H. Som-nee-a!_ Tax day is soon and this money's gotta be in Minsko's pocket before the end of the week. Try as I might, I can't exactly _relaxez-vous_ under such conditions. …Agh! Bollocks to it, bun." Beatrix grunted, before leaning forward, stretching a chunky arm over in her sister's direction. "Couldya pass me the thing?"

"Uh… huh? What thing?" Bianca responded after a delay, her gaze having previously drifted off.

"You know, the thing you're holding?"

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific, bun…"

Beatrix grumbled under her breath before pointing right at it. "You see that thing in your paw, looks like a carrot except it's white and made of paper and has smoke coming off the end of it? The one that you're looking at _right this very second?_ That thing!"

"Um…" Bianca went as her senses came back, coughing. "Oh, right. _That_ thing. Uh, sure."

She gradually pushed herself forward so she could hand the 'thing' to her sister… but just before the hand-over was completed, Beatrix's attention was drawn to a loud buzzing noise on the wall at the end of the room behind her.

"Ooooh, fan-bloody-tastic. Just what I need to start the day." she said, painstakingly pushing herself out her seat. "I used to say that when I had three-hour morning lectures on the chemical properties of vulpine excrement, but if I had known my sister and I would one day be aspiring drug queens, that phrase would have been _way_ down the bottom of the dialogue tree!" she raved as she wandered – or perhaps lumbered – over to a door on the wall from where the noise originated. Next to the door was an intercom device.

She pushed the button, moving in close to speak into it. "Greetings and salutations. What is your occupation and purpose for visiting, my most trusted and honoured guest?"

* * *

 _ **A short time earlier…**_

"So this 'Primal Jazz' stuff don't actually make you go savage? _Really?_ " Finnick asked as he drove his van, keeping an eye on the road.

"Nah. That's why everyone's takin' it now!" Razor replied, beginning to list items off on his hooves. "Eatin' it, smokin' it, whatever! It puts ya back in touch with yo' long-forgotten instincts, but you can still _do stuff_. That's the best part; it don't turn y'into a savage, it just gives you a… a _boost_. It's perfect for parties, y'know!"

"I dunno, Raze," Finnick said with a pause, scratching his nose. "I heard that it 'settles' into your body over time, and high doses _can_ make y'go savage."

"Well, o' course the prey-stream media propaganda would say crap like that!" Razor raised his voice, aggressively stabbing a hoof-finger in his face for emphasis. "It's 'cause they don't want y'all to get that feelin' o' liberation, o' bein' truly _free!_ Free to eat what yo' ass wanna eat, sniff what yo' ass wanna sniff, scuffle with who yo' ass wanna scuffle with!"

"Hey, I've been to parties where everyone was on it, Raze. All I saw were grown-ass mammals crawlin' around on the ground, ravin' about meat – an' that _includes_ bacon – makin' weird noises, sniffin' each other's asses an' pissin' all over the goddamn floor. If that's your idea of fun, I'd hate to put you in charge of arrangin' my surprise birthday party."

"Whatever. That's what they always say before they get hooked. Love it or hate it, y'can't deny them Hutch Sisters have made a real killin', pred. I heard they used to study chemistry at Bushveld U, an' the skinny one invented the stuff by accident when tryin' to bake Night Howlers into a cake. Next thing y'know, they're bakin' that stuff by the key, for a _fraction_ o' the money they make sellin' it!" Razor continued. His raving was cut short once his gaze was drawn to something at the side of the road and he held his hoof out in front of Finnick's face. "Yo, stop! This is the place!"

"Huh?" Finnick went, easing on the brakes. It wasn't something Finnick was especially keen of doing in this part of town.

Southern Savannah Central could be charitably described as a 'low-income neighbourhood', with boarded-up windows, potholes in the road, nature reclaiming the architecture and the occasional bullet-hole being common sights. Haymarket was historically a hub for grazing-mammal commerce and industry before they all moved north, to the Meadowlands. Finnick knew much of the area's history, on account of having grown up there. He'd left many years ago, swearing to never return except to spit on it, but it seemed like he was returning an awful lot nowadays; and if he spat every single time he left, he wouldn't have any saliva left to break down his lunch.

Looking out the passenger side of his van, Finnick soon brought the vehicle to a stop, recognising the destination building. They were in the middle of an aging industrial district, the distant sound of seagulls and ship's horns under the rumble of the van's engine reminding them that they were close to the old Savannah Central docks.

The building itself was a long, red-brick monstrosity, probably over a hundred years old by now. 'ELLO SHEEP BITCH' was mounted on the city-facing wall in huge, metallic letters. It probably read 'BELLWETHER WOOLS' originally, until some enterprising vandals artfully rearranged and reconstructed all the letters; the amount of crooked letters and the presence of duct tape supported Finnick's theory. Not that he'd blame them for doing that.

"Yep, this is definitely the place," Razor reaffirmed, squeezing himself back inside the van.

"Looks like a giant pile o' crap," Finnick said, looking straight ahead.

Razor snorted once more, folding his arms. "That's what y'say about _all_ the buildings in this 'hood, pred! They got _character!_ I'd rather live in a 'hood with _character_ than some fake-ass grazer art project like the rest o' this goddamn city."

"Hey, if yo' idea of ' _character_ ' is some dump with no air conditionin', no bath tub, an' howlin' psychos drivin' by tryin' to shoot up the place every goddamn freakin' minute because o' trivial little things like _my species_ , then be my guest!" Finnick said, counting the aspects off on his fingers. He leaned back and spread his arms wide. "Eat yo' heart out, Meadowlands suburbia! Haymarket is where it's really at! I can just _smell_ the tourists flockin' in!"

"No respect! Ya just don't get it, do ya? Y'all got no respect for our heritage, have ya, pred? That's exactly what character is!"

"' _Our'_ heritage?" Finnick snorted in imitation. "Don't gimme that patronisin' crap!" He yelled, stabbing a finger at the boar. "Just forget I said anythin', a'ight? You gonna go get that crap y'came for, or what?"

Razor sat back, pointing at himself as if accused. "Woah, woah, who said _I_ was gon' get it?"

Finnick's brow drooped, his mouth turning to a line and his ears flattening. "Are you freakin' kiddin' me? You just made me drive halfway across town to the one place I keep tellin' myself I ain't gon' back to, and now you want me to go get your stupid-ass drugs, too?! You lazy-ass wannabite!"

"Hey, I already told ya on the way here, the door's too small for me! Barely. Your midget ass could fit in there just fine!"

Finnick groaned, massaging his temples for a few seconds. "Ugghhh… fine, whatever," he conceded before reaching for the door, opening it up.

"Oh!" Razor cut in before he could step out, "There'll be a li'l intercom outside. When the bunny on the other end talks to ya, tell her you're the milkmammal, and yo' 'ere to collect the bunny scout cookies!"

"O… kay," Finnick said before he grabbed his sunglasses and finally jumped down to ground level from the driver's seat, landing in the middle of the road. He shut the door behind him. "I really gotta learn how to say 'no'…" he muttered to himself, putting his sunglasses back on.

Walking around the front of his van and onto the sidewalk, he got a closer look at the wall of the old wool factory. He could feel his ears twitch as he noticed a few security cameras mounted on the wall, practically invisible from a distance. Looking further up, he could see that there used to be windows underneath the 'Ello Sheep Bitch' sign, but they'd been sealed up with bricks. Squinting at the sealed-up windows, the bricks looked rather new compared to the rest of the building. Someone had been doing some refurbishment.

This only became more obvious once he'd walked around the corner, at the very head of the building, and encountered the door Razor had mentioned. It was absolutely tiny compared to the building itself – though Finnick reckoned that Razor probably could fit through it if he tried hard enough – and made of thick steel. There was yet another security camera mounted above the armoured door, and to the side, the intercom device.

Finnick walked up to it and pressed the button – though he had to jump up to reach it – producing the usual buzzing noise. He cracked his knuckles in anticipation for what sort of notorious, dangerous drug producer would answer; surely, Minsko wouldn't trust an operation like this to some Badgish 'cottontail college dropouts'.

After about forty-five seconds of waiting, he received an answer. "Greetings and salutations. What is your occupation and purpose for visiting, my most trusted and honoured guest?" a fast-paced female voice said on the other end. Definitely _sounded_ like a Badgish cottontail college dropout, so that was that hypothesis of his proved wrong.

Finnick leaned in close to the intercom, standing on his tiptoes and clearing his throat. "I'm the milkmammal. I'm here to collect the, uh… bunny scout cookies," he said; fortunately his confused grimace was invisible to the rabbit on the other end.

"Your response has been acknowledged and logged, esteemed milkmammal," the rabbit said after a pause. "A company representative… will be with you _shortly._ "

As he waited for her to open the armoured door for him, Finnick leaned up against the wall with his paws in his pockets. He surveyed the surrounding area, taking in the scenic views of crumbling factories and broken dreams. He took a long sniff of the air, catching the distinct scent of the sea, Dylo vapours, and a whiff of vomit. Ah, memories. Horrible, horrible memories. Most kits he knew of… well, to be fair, most kits he knew had the same memories. Sometimes worse. At least he managed to avoid jail… mostly. But he's been _told_ that most kits are supposed to have cushy lives, free of… everything this part of the city is made of. It's the sort of thing that made the idea of reincarnation appealing to him. If only he could be born again as a wealthy sheep, or something. Have something that passed for a normal kithood. Though when he thought about it, he doubted wealthy sheep had 'normal' lambhoods, either.

Finnick was soon jumped out of his bored mental tangent by the sound of beeping coming from the other side of the door. Regaining his bearing, he straightened his sunglasses and dusted off his shirt. Soon, the armoured door slowly swung open by itself.

Finnick walked inside and immediately starting coughing, the air being filled with dust. As far as he could tell, he had walked into a cage made from black sheets of metal with lots of holes drilled into them. The cage had a locked door on its left side, and ahead of him, some kind of kiosk with a pane of bulletproof glass built into it.

The fennec leaned to the side to see what was beyond the glass, but he could see nothing but darkness. The only light in the whole room was coming from outside. And even that disappeared once the armoured door shut behind him, leaving him in the dark. He jumped once more when a light switched on, and a figure had seemingly popped into existence from the other side of the bulletproof glass.

An overweight, bespectacled white rabbit in pink pyjamas, with her chunky arms folded and her brow half-raised. It was more seconds than expected before Finnick forced himself to talk.

"So, you one o' the Hutch sisters?" Finnick asked, raising his sunglasses.

"Nope. I'm the Easter bunny's fat daughter: the Wicked Witch of Easter. It's all the chocolate eggs, you know," she said, patting her belly. "But life is short, so you can call me the W.W.E."

"Uh… huh," Finnick went, scratching his ear. This was not at all what he was expecting, and he certainly didn't have time for this nonsense. If she kept this up, Razor would have to go cold turkey. "Anyway, I was told to come 'ere to collect some o' your, uh… um… cookies."

"Perhaps that's what you've been told, but that assumes that you're _really_ one of the milkmammals. Funny thing, I wasn't aware we hired a fennec fox. But maybe I've just developed a case of amnesia…" she said, circling a finger around her floppy ear. "It happens when you deal with 'bunny scout cookies' as much as us. You'll have to jog my memory."

"Yeah, that ain't the only thing needs a jog, sister…" Finnick grumbled under his breath, looking towards the ground.

"Dohohohoho!" Beatrix Hutch faked a jolly laugh, even holding her head back. "That was very clever, little guy! It was _almost_ like a joke, except _it wasn't bloody funny_!" her voice suddenly turned harsh. "Let's get serious for a moment. You're trapped in a cage with no way out. I'm not opening that door until you explain how you found out about the sodding pass-phrase!"

"Alright, alright, calm yo' carrot-ass down!" Finnick said, once more rubbing his temples. "My friend Razor told me. Y'heard o' him?"

Beatrix adjusted her glasses as she gazed up to the ceiling in thought. "As a matter of fact, yes, I have heard of _'Ray-zor'_ ," she said with an 'air quotes' gesture. "The wild boar, is he not? The one who always has trouble fitting through that door?"

"Yyyyyup. That's him. Hell, it's the reason he sent me here instead o' collectin' his crap himself." Finnick paused to exaggeratedly look up, tapping his chin with a claw. "Just outta curiosity, I don't s'pose you have trouble fittin' through there, too?"

"Dohohoho!" Beatrix 'laughed' again as she pulled a phone out of her pocket. "Just so you know, I'm not in the least bit insecure about my weight. But please, do continue making fat jokes to the bunny who literally has the power to decide whether or not you starve to death in a tiny cage. I can't possibly imagine how that enlightened course of action might backfire in any way. You bloody idiot."

Tempted as he may have been to ask if she was in such a bad mood because she'd broken the bed that morning, Finnick held off on the humourous insensitivity long enough to notice her fiddling about with her phone. "Sister, what exactly are you doin'?"

"Staying up-to-date on current affairs, you muppet."

It wasn't long before she'd finished dialling… somebody's number. Holding up a floppy ear with one paw, she held her phone under it with the other. "Hello, D-meets? …Yep. Yeah, some tiny bloke has shown up at our plant unannounced. A fennec fox. …Yes, he knew the pass-phrase. He says _'Ray-zor'_ told him. …Hmm? 'Kay."

She briefly turned back to Finnick. "What's his real name?"

"Uh… DeSudo Jackson," Finnick said, scratching his head. On any other occasion, saying it out loud would always coincide with stifled laughter. He wasn't sure whether to be glad this wasn't the case, or further irritated at this situation Razor had landed him in.

"DeSudo Jackson," Beatrix repeated over the phone. "…'Kay. I'll tell him. And yes, I've got your money. I was in the middle of counting it before this pint-sized muppet interrupted. Seeyers."

The rabbit switched off her phone and turned her attention back to the fennec. "So, 'Finnick', apparently the boss trusts you, so I'm gonna let you off. But when you get back to your wannabite friend outside, do me a favour and tell him I'm docking ten percent of his cut next time he gets paid."

Finnick's face turned into yet another confused grimace. "Paid? For what? He don't work for you!"

" _Au contraire_ , I think you'll find he does; we're drug _producers,_ not drug dealers. Razor _is_ a dealer. Otherwise I wouldn't have told him the pass-phrase, which, in retrospect, was a mistake. What's happened here, you understand, is that he's created a security breach because he was too lazy to get off his piggy arse and collect the product himself. This means I'll have to make up a new one and go through the rigmarole of passing it around all our _other_ dealers. Inconsiderate wanker."

"Heh," Finnick went, idly kicking the floor. " _That_ we can agree on. I've known the guy for a while. I mean, I can't really judge him too hard; his heart's in the right place. He's just a li'l…" Finnick stopped to wiggle fingers in front of his eyes, " _…different_. Though I can't say the crap he's been takin' from you has been helpin'."

"Your loss, fox. Like I said, I'm not a dealer. Expecting the mammal who makes your toilet to sell it to you as well is just un-bloody-realistic. If you're straight-edge, that's Razor's problem, not mine," she said, pulling another item out of her pocket. It was a transparent plastic bag filled with bright green, square-shaped 'cookies'; Finnick didn't need to ask what they were.

Underneath the bulletproof glass was some kind of metallic slot. Beatrix unlocked the slot from her side, opened it up and slid the bag of 'Primal Jazz' pieces through. Finnick stepped quickly forward, catching the product before it could hit the ground.

"Right. You got the stuff, now kindly sod off! _And have a nice day._ " Beatrix said, once more opening the armoured door behind Finnick.

The fennec fox slowly reversed his way back outside; he would have responded in some way to Beatrix's idea of a farewell, but his attention was immediately drawn elsewhere. One of his giant ears twitched in the direction of yelling. Distressingly Razor-like yelling.

"Aw, hell… uh, thanks, bunny," was all Finnick could come up with before he made a beeline back to the van, with as much speed as his undersized legs could provide. He looked back at the door long enough to see it close behind him.

What he saw next was almost enough to make him fall over from cringing too hard.

"You dumb-ass hag, I only been here for five freakin' minutes!" Razor bellowed in the face of an old goat, who from the looks of things was a ZPD meter maid, just moments away from slipping a parking ticket under Finnick's windscreen wiper. "That is an indi-freakin'-sputable fact! 'Ey, listen to me! LISTEN! Don't you dare put that ticket on my windshield, I swear to God! Y'all are insultin' my dignity, hag! No respect! Nobody disrespects DeSudo 'Razor' Jackson an' gets away with it, hag! _NOBODY!"_

Officer Cloverfield looked Razor straight in the eyes. "This is a no-parking zone, sonny. Has been for nearly fifty years. For nearly fifty years, anyone who parks here, pays a ticket. That includes _you_ ," she said, giving him a hard poke in the chest.

Razor's calm and reasoned response was to forcibly grab Mabel's walker and shove his face into hers. "SCREW YOU! You wanna freakin' die, you old bitch-ass grazer?! I'll put yo' saggy ass in the ground with the rest of 'em! Go on, _do it!_ I dare ya, _I double dare ya!_ _PUT 'ER THERE!"_

"You don't scare me, porker," Mabel said darkly, squinting. "I've put away _shrews_ scarier than you."

" _RAZE!_ What the hell are you doin'?!" Finnick cut in with yells of his own, drawing the attention of both parties. "Are you _tryin'_ to get us fifteen-to-life?!"

"Fin, this hag-ass grazer was disrespectin' me!" Razor attempted to defend himself, walking away from the goat.

"I don't care if she was pullin on yo' twisty tail!" Finnick yelled again with a point. "An' I don't care if she's a hundred-year-old meter maid, neither; you _don't_ threaten cops, you idiot! An' you _especially_ don't tell them your real freakin' name while doin' so! Now get yo' porky ass in _my_ van before you get us _both_ slapped with tame collars!" Finnick continued yelling, stopping to briefly slap his forehead upon realising that he'd unwittingly blurted out the fact that Razor's real name was, in fact, his _real_ name and not just another outlandish alias.

Razor simply snorted in disgust, but did as he was told, squeezing himself back into the van. Finnick, meanwhile, turned to face Mabel, an apologetic expression on his muzzle. "Please accept my apologies, ma'am. My partner here is a delusional maniac who thinks he's a pred. I hope y'understand."

"…What are you holding, _fox?_ " Mabel said, still squinting and now trying to crane her neck at him.

Finnick looked down at his paws, remembering that he was clutching several hundred dollars' worth of designer drugs. He began to sweat and tremble. "…Bunny scout cookies."

Mabel once again tried her hardest to focus her vision, but all she could see was a mass of green… stuff in a bag. But then she remembered; there was a good reason she'd chosen parking duty over regular duty. Her physical faculties were no longer suited for actual investigation. This was a perfect example.

"Hmm… well, I'm over eighty years old and I couldn't see a bat if it landed on my nose, so I'll let you off just this once!" she declared, doing her best to stand up straight in a dignified fashion.

Finnick breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew. Thanks a lot, officer," he said with a lid placed firmly on his Razor-related rage. He soon walked back around the van and clambered back into the driver's seat, ready to give the deluded porker a much-needed lecture.

* * *

Soon after that incident, Beatrix Hutch had returned to the living quarters at 'Ello Sheep Bitch', incorporated. It didn't take long for her to begin rubbing her tired eyes in frustration. "Stupid bloody idiots…" she mumbled to herself. "What the bloody hell do they think this is? This isn't some stupid video game where you can fool the cops by getting your sodding car resprayed for five pounds…"

She sighed once more upon seeing the excessive amount of cash she still had left to count. She paused as she tried to remember if she had been taking notes on how much cash she'd already counted. "Uggghhhh…" she 'said'. This was perfect, she thought to herself. One of her dealers blatantly disregarded the rule of confidentiality and blabbed the top secret pass-phrase to a mammal who _could_ have been an undercover bobby, Minsko's tax-mammal was on his way and she still hadn't finished counting the money she owed. She'd already been forced to start over at least three times last night, and she was almost certain she'd spent what money she _didn't_ owe Dmitry on coffee.

"Bugger me, I need some Dylo!" she said to herself, wandering close to her skinny sister, still draped on the exact same couch she was on when Beatrix left the room; she even still had that joint in her paw. "'Ey, B. Can you gimme that thing, now?"

No response.

"B?" she repeated, leaning in closer. It was only then she could hear the distinct noise of Bianca snoring, a few strands of drool coming out of her wide-open mouth. Of course she hadn't noticed before, the way she wore her hat.

Without saying anything else, Beatrix simply snatched the Dylo joint right out of Bianca's paw. This had the side effect of waking her up, and she began to cough and splutter as she began moving again. Beatrix sat down on her beanbag and attempted to take a drag, only to discover that the light had burnt out in her absence.

"Oh… s-sorry, Trix," Bianca began, "I was just thinking of dialogue trees. If scripts are written on paper, doesn't that mean _all_ trees are dialogue trees?"

"C'mon, spark, you bastard…" Beatrix muttered to herself, completely ignoring her sister as she struggled to get her faulty lighter to work. Finally, she re-lit the end of the joint and took a much needed drag. She coughed and spat. "Egh… stupid bloody thing has gone cold on me… oh well, it'll do for now."

Bianca fidgeted about on the couch some more, positioning herself so she was lying on her back with one leg on the back of the couch. She stretched her arms. "So, uh… _wha gwa'an_?"

Beatrix paused for a moment, herself fidgeting to get comfortable. "That's several magnitudes better. B, I think we have a… security problem. Our pass-phrase has been compromised. Again. We got lucky this time; turns out the little sod it got leaked to was also working for Dmitry. But he could have been a cop. He wasn't, but he _could_ have been. I'm not a speciesist, and neither are the ZPD. They hired a fox. They'd hire another one if it got them closer to our product. …Or they'd send that bloody rabbit cop over."

"Um… so? Just get a new password phrase, like." Bianca replied, nonchalantly.

"Oh, Bianca, my dear sister… so young, so naïve! I wish it was that simple, but this isn't the first time there's been a security breach."

"But…" Bianca began to say, stopping to clear her nose, "I don't see why you're so worried. I mean, we've got cameras, that cage, the door, motion detectors… what next, bun? Surface-to-air missiles?"

"Now _there's_ a thought…" Beatrix said, brushing her triple-chin in contemplation.

"I was _joking_ , Beatrix!" the skinny rabbit said, fidgeting some more; like she was trying to get back upright but gave up. "Next you're gonna tell me you saw that seal, too…"

Beatrix's eyes widened and her ears twitched in her sister's direction. "Um… what? Seal?" she asked, chancing another drag of the joint to calm her nerves.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell ya… last night, I was checking up on the plants, and I kept seein' these flashes coming from the loading bay out back… you were up, too, but I guess you were too busy, like. So yeah, I look outside, and I swear I saw a seal with an ancient Pandaroid camera, or sum'it. Looked like a proper Mammal In Black-type figure, too."

Beatrix slapped herself on the forehead with both paws. "Why didn't you tell me before?!"

"I did, but you said 'not now', remember? Anyway, it was probably Dylo bubblin' away at my senses again. I mean, I thought I saw a UFO once, but then I looked real close-like, and it turned out to be a doughnut you were eatin'. It was just an O."

"Well that's just _marvellous_ , innit?" Beatrix began to dig her paw into her seat; she took another drag, which forced her to loosen her grip for just another moment. "I bet he was ZPD… we seriously need to do somethin', B. I didn't go into this trade just so I could become one of those miserable little sob stories that get paraded around for anti-drug PSAs! It's like… ever since I was a kit, I've always thought 'bugger being a princess, I want to be a _queen_ of something!' We were hardly gonna get married into the royal family, but this is the next best thing! You and I, we're the queens of Primal, the queens of Jazz! Together, we can take Zootropolis-"

"Zootopia," Bianca interrupted.

"Right, we can take _Zootopia_ by the bollocks!" Beatrix raised a voice, sending a fist into the side of her beanbag. "I dunno about you, but we've come too far to let the fuzz come in and muck it all up now!"

"Well… yeah, that's great and all… but, I dunno…" Bianca began to say, slowly sliding upside-down on the couch.

"…I kinda miss when we first started doin' this stuff. Y'know? Back when we were just studyin' chemistry an' that. Just a coupla dumb bunnies who cooked up exotic drugs on the side for fun an' profit, because who would ever suspect us, like? It was just like the movies, and we still went an' studied chemistry, smoked Dylo, did normal college student stuff. Meant that if everything went tits-up, we could just quit an' everything would be back to normal. But… I dunno, I think the success kinda got to our heads a bit. We kept thinking to ourselves, like, how can we make the business even bigger and better, but we never stopped to ask if that was a good idea in the first place. An' then Minsko took notice, he wrangles us into his pocket, and suddenly bein' the Night Howler queens of Bushveld Uni became a full-time job. I think… maybe if we just _stopped,_ we'd look back and realise that the fun had pissed off long ago."

By the time Bianca was finished, she was almost completely upside-down, her long rabbit feet resting atop the couch, her head, paws and oversized shirt dangling off the front, exposing her fluffy torso. She scratched her torso and cocked her head, waiting for her sister to respond.

Beatrix found herself slouching in her seat, gazing wistfully out the windows. She took yet another drag on the now thoroughly-used joint. "Y'know… maybe you're right, B. Sometimes I think the same thing. But it's not just about us anymore. There's a demand for what we have to offer, and if it's not us, it's just gonna be someone else, so it might as well be us. Besides, we're way too deep into it now to just quit. Maybe this was the wrong path, but I'm not a quitter. If I'm gonna be a drug queen, I'm gonna do it _right!_ "

"Y'know, you could just sell our formula to Minsko so he can make it himself…" Bianca suggested, futilely attempting to pull her shirt back up.

"Well, isn't that a wonderful idea, my dear sister? And perhaps once we've shaken paws and said our farewells, he'd even give us a complimentary fruit basket, perhaps an all-expenses-paid cruise to the Battican Islands?" Beatrix leaned forward, adjusting her glasses. "You realise that Dmitry Minsko is a dangerous mammal, do you not? Do you seriously think he'd just let us hop along with the potential to compete with his business? Best case scenario, he forces us to leave town. Worst case scenario, he shoots us both, turns us into rabbit stew and feeds us to that savage honey badger he keeps locked up! Either that, or we continue working for him as bottom-rung drug farmers, no different from the hundreds of others he's got slaving away! No different from a _sodding carrot farmer!_ Frankly, if I'm gonna be working for him, I'd rather be in control of my fate! In fact…"

Beatrix's expression got even more intent as she rubbed her chins, frowning. She managed to rest one thick leg atop the other. "…It's entirely possible that mink won't even wait for us to give him the formula. We know that he'd make a lot more money if he had direct control over production of Primal Jazz… but does _he_ know? And more importantly, does he know that _we_ know? Because if he does, it's only a matter of time before he sends a raid squad to burst down our front door. And look at ourselves, B. I'm a whale in rabbit's clothing, you're a narcoleptic stoner; there's no way we'd be able to fend them off by ourselves. We need backup; someone to tip the odds in our favour. Someone with no possible connection to Minsko, or the ZPD, or anyone else!"

"Hmm…" Bianca began to scratch her ears, deep in thought. After a few seconds, her mouth slowly opened up as she cycled through everything her sister had been saying. "Trix, didn't you say something about a honey badger? …I think I know someone…"

"You do?!" Beatrix sat up again, paying close attention. "Well, who the bloody hell is it?!"

"Just let me think, let me think!" Bianca circled her hand around like a wheel. She groaned, pulling herself back up to a proper sitting position, "Honey badger, honey badger… um… oh… sodding hell, it's on the tip of my tongue, like! Gimme that thing!"

Beatrix wasted no time in handing the joint back to Bianca. She almost violently shoved it into her mouth with both paws and took a very, very long and deep drag on it, to the point that she rapidly waved her head from side to side to shake off the sharp buzz.

"Thanks… ugh…" she said, coughing and spluttering some more. "I remember now… there was this honey badger I met at a party once… I think her name's literally Honey. She's some ex-military survivalist kinda mammal, like. Gun nut. Lives in a bunker outta town. She don't trust nobody… well, except other mammals that don't trust nobody. So she does trust some mammals, but… th-the list is a short one, is what I'm sayin'. You remember Bellwether, the old mayor?"

"Yeah? What about her?"

"Honey knew all along that somethin' weren't right about that ewe, like. She told me at the party."

Beatrix slammed her paws on the side of her beanbag and dramatically lifted herself to a standing position. Even more dramatically, she pointed right at her sister's face. "Bianca Hutch, you are a _bloody genius_. I have to have a word with this badger… but first, I'm right bloody hungry. Is it your turn to go to the store, or mine?"

"Um… crap, I can't remember…"

"Well, I still need to count this stupid bloody money, so I think you'd better go. It'd keep you awake. Just remember to get me an elephant-size bag o' potato chips and a jumbo 'Oka-Kola. I've got some real bad munchies…"

* * *

"Ah! Now this is what ya _really_ want, Leonard! The Hamsda Civilian! I mean, you _are_ a former civil servant, aren't ya?" Phil Rasconovitch's sales pitch echoed through the pristine car showroom as he showed off an intermediate-size compact car – ice-white and futuristic – to his latest customer.

"Mm-hmm… I did indeed hold a position in local government before I went into hotel management, yes," said Leonard, the customer in question; a hoity-toity-looking antelope wearing a suit and round glasses. "I've always been a proponent of public transport, but when you're as busy as I am, a simple compact car such as this may be the next best thing. Not so sure about the styling, though…" he said, brushing his chin.

"Maybe you just ain't wearin' your glasses properly!" Phil said with his best smarmy expression, even clucking his tongue and doing a 'finger gun' gesture. "To me, this looks pretty much perfect for ya. The grille really puts me in mind of an antelope's horns, the way the black line sorta… connects. Like the letter V, almost. And who says it has to be simple, either? This is just the boring ol' base model. An esteemed public ser- uh, _former_ public servant such as yourself could no doubt afford all sorts of extras!"

"I'm sure I _could_ , but that doesn't mean I _should_ ," Leonard declared, putting his hooves behind his back. "I merely need a simple, cheap means to commute within city limits; no more, no less."

"Ah! That's what they all say; and then they come _crawlin'_ back when they realise that, when ya think about it, most 'optional extras' are, in fact, 'optional _essentials'_! Satellite navigation alone is an absolute must-have if you're gonna be drivin' around the city all day. And what if you have an accident an' you get stuck in the Sahara Dunes, or in the Swamplands, or in a Tundratown ice field? Adaptive tyres and suspension, my ungulate friend. Adaptive tyres and suspension. An' then o' course you got things like air conditionin' and heated seats. I don't need to tell ya why you'd need those."

Leonard exhaled sharply. "Look, Mr. Rasconovitch, I'll be honest with you. I'm not an adventurous one. I work Downtown, I live Downtown. I can count the number of times I've visited the other biomes on both hooves; not counting the Meadowlands, of course. I simply have no need for most of these extras."

"Yeah, sure, but these are dirt-cheap. So ya might as well have 'em, just in case; I mean, no offence, but rich folk get into all sorts o' weird scrapes they don't plan for, ain't that right? Heck, they're so cheap, it's almost as if I personally dug the parts out the trash; but o' course, I didn't, and you'd be pretty speciesist to think otherwise, eh?" Phil said with a wink.

Leonard pursed his lip, tugging at his ascot. "I am familiar with your sales tactics, Mr. Rasconovitch. You convince me to buy these optional extras on the pretence that they are extra cheap, but when the total cost is added up, they are in fact rather expensive."

Phil's smarmy façade broke just a little bit and he folded his arms, clearly getting uneasy. "Hehehe… _good one!_ C'mon now, do I look like I'd insult your intelligence like that? I mean, I may be a raccoon, but we ain't all crooks!"

Before the sale could continue, however, Phil could both feel and hear the distinct sensations of a vibrating phone in his pocket. He almost froze like a statue as he witnessed the antelope subtly raise a brow at the sight.

"Um… tell ya what, I gotta take this phone call. The car's unlocked, so I'll leave you to have a look around, make yourself at home, et cetera, et cetera! I'll come back to you in a moment. 'Kay? Good mammal!" he said, clicking his fingers and pointing, with the sort of fake smile that would be accompanied by a twinkle if he were in a toothpaste advert.

Power-walking as fast as possible, Phil made sure to stand in such a position that he was still behind the reception desk at the front of the showroom, but not completely, to avoid getting distracted by the trash can again. He whipped out his phone and, without even bothering to verify who was calling, answered.

"Yello; you've reached Phil Rasconovitch, the raccoon of many things to many mammals! How may I help you?"

"Hey, Phil! It's me, Duke Weaselton!" a familiar and rather anxious voice said from the other end.

Phil almost immediately turned from smarmy and confident to anxious and wary himself, edging further behind the desk and considerably lowering the volume of his voice. It figures that Finnick shouldn't be the only mammal who used to help him to pick through trash to suddenly decide to reappear today.

"Duke? …Damn, I thought you were dead. What do you want? I've already had two crooks shake me down today, and I'm not in the mood to perpetuate negative raccoon stereotypes! I'm a new mammal with a new job, so if you want work, I'm afraid you're out of luck!"

"N-n-no, I ain't askin' _you_ for work! Well, not you _specifically_ … I-I mean," Duke cleared his throat, attempting to sound more confident. "Long story short, I've had a spell of abnormally bad luck lately. I've been itchin' real bad to stretch my serious thinkin' muscles and contribute to mammal society in a constructive way, know what I mean? You used to hustle the streets, didn't ya? You know pretty much everyone. Surely there's someone rich and/or powerful you could put me in touch with who needs someone to undertake a coupla favours for 'em. Call it, uh… self-inflicted community service! N-no wait, I mean… self-motivated… or… self-assigned… just community service."

After a short while, Phil stood up straight again, retaining his confident bearings, while combining it with discretion. He rubbed his moustache in thought, having figured out a way to get this weasel off his back. "Actually, Duke, I think I know just the mammal. Now, I have no idea what he might be plannin', and it's probably in my best interests that I remain in the dark. I'd give you his number myself, but I'd rather not, because this is a public signal. Instead, I'll phone up the guy later and give him _your_ number, and if he's interested, he'll give you a call personally. Sound fair?"

Another pause. "Uhh… yeah, that sounds pretty freakin' fair. Thanks, Phil!"

"You're welcome. Don't contact me again."

Phil abruptly cut him off before Duke had the chance. This was just typical, he thought; it's like nobody can turn over a new leaf in this day and age. Old connections just lingered like the smell of garbage on one's suit after a particularly rigorous dumpster-diving session.

The raccoon shook his head. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about garbage, especially when he was waiting on an employee to come back with his protection money from the bank. He turned back around, cracked his knuckles, and once more put on his salesmammal face.

"Now, Leonard… where were we?"

* * *

 _Well, there we are. My longest chapter ever. And that's not even counting these author's notes. If you're wondering what relevance all these subplots have in the grand scheme of things, well... let's just say it'll all end up connected by the end._

 _If you decide to review, I'd appreciate some feedback on both the length and my decision to give Finnick and Razor thick 'urban' dialects; I felt that it fit their character, since Finnick put me in mind of an inner-city gang-banger trying to move up in the criminal underworld, and Razor is pretty much that turned up to eleven, b_ _ _ut I still have a slight feeling that I might have overdone it (t_ hink of Franklin and Lamar from Grand Theft Auto V, and you'll have a good idea of the sort of dynamic I was going for; in fact, this entire fic was pretty heavily GTA-inspired, albeit less sweary and violent, of course)._

 _Phil and Leonard are two more Crime Files characters; and as for the obligatory Berserker credit, he helped me come up with the name 'Primal Jazz' for this story's brand of Night Howler derivative!_


	4. A Weekend At Livia's

_**A Weekend At Livia's**_

It was now high noon at the Wesiltone residence. For once in the Rainforest District's existence, the sky was clear, though the carved platforms leading up the side of the tree-tower were still slick and damp from previous storms. While the sun may have been shining overhead, the overhanging canopy still cast an uneven shadow over the platforms. The District certainly played the part of looking like a rainforest, but it was still technically urban territory; as such, it wasn't so good at _sounding_ like one. Fortunately, at this particular time, the loud creaking of the platforms as a particularly heavy figure walked up them was enough to cover up the sound of cars, boats and airships in the distance.

Or if not that, then the loud arguing.

"So wait… you're telling me that for a whole year after you joined the force, you didn't know that Lou Fangmeyer was a tigress? And I thought us rhinos were short-sighted…" Officer McHorn said; him being the source of the creaks. He stood closer to the tree, knowing that it'd better support his rhinoceros weight at this height.

"Hey, don't be like that, Vic!" his partner Officer Wolford responded, flanking him to the right. "I mean, what the hell were you expectin' when you call her 'Lou' all the freakin' time?! I mean, who the hell even does that? Whatever's wrong with 'Louise'? It's only _one_ extra syllable!"

"That kinda misses the point, though, don't it? You couldn't tell that Lou was female from lookin' at her? It really isn't that difficult."

"Maybe for _you_ it ain't, Mister Ultimate Detective," Wolford said with a point, "but I always thought she looked… well, y'know…" the wolf began to roll his paws around once he saw the rhino looking down at him with a mean squint. "I-I mean, there ain't nothin' wrong with that! Hell, I actually thought she looked- _looks_ great! Real nice! The very model of feline… uh… well, y'know what I mean!"

McHorn stopped squinting and put his massive hands on his hips. "Yeah, an' it might be a good idea to stop thinkin' that, or at the very least avoid sayin' it to her muzzle."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, she's married! This nose an' these ears pay more attention than ya think!" Wolford said, pointing at his nose and ears in turn. "Besides, even ignorin' the obvious implication that I'm somehow not allowed to say I think a member o' the opposite gender looks nice without implyin' I gotta crush on 'em, you know I don't do that romance crap! It's too much hassle. That's why I'm a lone wolf! Just gimme a beer, some no-good punks to arrest, an' some gratuitously violent video games; that's all I need!" Wolford folded his arms and nodded, grinning.

"That's good to know, Dennis, but I was _actually_ referring to the implication that you mistook Officer Fangmeyer for a tomcat 'cause of a 'masculine' appearance," McHorn said with 'air quotes'. "Stan – the _other_ Fangmeyer – made the same mistake when she was still known as Lou Stryper, an' she was none too pleased. As in, 'tased in the vitals' none too pleased."

"Well, thank you for showin' such concern for my safety," Wolford threw his paws into the air, "but it's a tad too late now, ain't it? I mean, I coulda been tasered in the vitals for that whole first year an' you didn't tell me?" he continued, now pointing at said 'vitals'. "Were you withholdin' that information for sheer comic relief or somethin'?"

"No, I just reasonably assumed you'd figure it out on your own," McHorn said, brushing a nostril. "It's not my fault you need someone else to _tell_ you what gender your colleagues are. You'd have figured it out real fast if you actually talked to her."

"I _do_ talk to her!"

"Yeah, _after_ you found out."

"It had nothin' to do with my findin' out, I was just reluctant to approach her! I mean, she's kinda stoic, y'know; she don't talk much. Kinda like Oates, 'cept without the fixation with speakin' in freakin' riddles all the time. Still, even _he_ can see the humour inherent in the idea of a three-humped camel…" Wolford gazed off the side of the platform, shaking his head.

"Are you seriously still on that?"

" _YES_!" the wolf looked back immediately, his paws to his sides like an indignant pup.

"Well, I'm not. Anyway, we're here, at last," Officer McHorn announced, having approached the front door of the Wesiltones' Apartment, #56. He stopped, hooking his thumbs onto his belt. "Now shut up and knock on the door."

"Why _me_?!" Wolford stopped after a delay, pointing at himself incredulously, "'Shut up an' knock on the door', yerself!"

"Because I'm a rhino? And this is a weasel residence? I might break the thing?" McHorn cocked his head to the side and pointed down at the door, not even half his height. His hand alone would probably be enough to punch straight through it. "I don't need to remind you what happened with that jackal family over by Pack Street, do I?"

"Fine, whatever." Wolford waved him off, turning to approach the door with fist raised; himself about a head taller than the door. "But I'm only doin' it 'cause I _want_ to, not 'cause you asked or nothin'."

"Didn't want to just a second ago," McHorn muttered.

"I changed my mind!" Wolford said, his fist still raised in preparation. "D'you want me to, or not?!"

"Just do it, already."

With a sigh, the timber wolf lightly tapped the door with his knuckles, to the tune of 'a shave and a furcut'. It didn't take especially long for the door to be answered. It soon swung open, and the two cops found themselves staring face-to-face with an aged and slightly irate-looking female weasel in a leopard-print blazer, in the process of smoking a cigarette.

Wolford raised a claw and opened his mouth to introduce themselves, only to be cut off by McHorn.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. Are you Livia Wesiltone?" the rhino said, kneeling down on one knee to make his face visible to the much smaller mammal.

"Depends who's askin'. I don't s'pose you two are here to tell me I've won the lottery, are ya?" she said, taking a drag from her cigarette.

McHorn hesitantly looked off to the side. "… _Nnnno_ ," he cleared his throat, looked back and pointed at his badge. "I'm Officer Victor McHorn, ZPD. This is Officer Dennis Wolford," he said, looking down at his partner, " _also_ ZPD. We've come to ask you a couple questions about your son, Dante. Or 'Duke Weaselton', as he's apparently known."

After McHorn had finished, he gently tapped his partner on the shoulder, prompting him to regain his attention to the current goings-on. He pulled out a notepad and pen from his belt in short order.

"Dante don't live 'ere no more. His ass is gone," Mrs. Wesiltone replied, waving her cigarette.

Both the cops narrowed their eyes at this news. "What do you mean?" McHorn asked.

Mrs. Wesiltone shook her head and grumbled something under her breath. "I mean he left. He pissed off. He skipped town. He fled the burrow. He vanished. _Scomparso._ Shall I go on? An' I hope yer notin' this _all_ down, Officah Moondog," she finished, taking another drag to blow smoke into Wolford's muzzle. The wolf, who _had_ been taking notes, was stopped by the smoke and the forced coughs.

McHorn, anticipating that his partner might get incensed by this, strategically opted to push him back with his hand before he could say anything. "I see. Do you know where he's gone? We just need to talk to him about something."

"Pfft, sure ya do," Mrs. Wesiltone spat at her feet. "I know you fuzz types probably wanna arrest him for loiterin' or somethin', but I got no freakin' idea where he is. He left home months ago an' he ain't been in contact with me at all. I mean, ya weren't seriously expectin' him to still be livin' with his ma, were ya? A fully-grown weasel? Honestly. Some 'detectives' you are."

McHorn paused to scratch his horn in thought, a brow raising with suspicion. "Hmm… I see. That's a shame. Unfortunately, you probably didn't know, but your son might have-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," the weasel cut him off, waving her cigarette around.

"But don't you want to know what your son has-"

"Quite frankly, I couldn't give a rat's ass, so that'd be a _no_. His business is his business, not mine. Now, I got stuff to do an' places to be, so this conversation's ovah. Come back with a warrant or don't come back at all, _capisce_?"

Mrs. Wesiltone then proceeded to rather violently slam the door in their faces. Or where their faces would have been, had they been smaller. The noise was still enough to make both their ears twitch.

"Well, this was a colossal waste o' time!" Wolford said, throwing his paws into the air again.

McHorn scratched his horn some more and exhaled sharply, making his way back down the platform. "I knew this would happen. That's why Oates sent _us_ up here instead of doing it himself."

"That so, Rhinock?" Wolford said as he followed, holding his paws out. "I thought he only sent us up here 'cause he's a lazy, cryptic old bastard an' he couldn't get Wilde an' Hopps to do it like he normally does! An' another thing, how come you didn't let me say anythin'?! I swear, you _never_ let me say anythin'!"

"Because _you're_ the note-taker. I'm the one who does the talking. I thought we already discussed this..."

"Well, I wanna renegotiate! Why don't _you_ take the notes an' _I_ do the talkin' next time?"

"Hey, if _you_ wanna pay for a rhino-size notepad and pen, I'm all for it!"

An unfortunate side-effect of the cops' bickering was rendering them somewhat oblivious to the less obvious aspects of their surroundings. So what neither of them realised as they headed back down the platform from whence they came was one of the wooden struts connected to the tree tower, keeping the platform stable. Or, more precisely, what was hidden _behind_ it, just around the corner from the Wesiltone residence.

Three mammals had been lying in wait, all three of them smaller than the two cops. Duke's cousin, Dribs, and two accomplices. One of them a pack rat, the other a beaver. With one paw gripping his cane, Dribs held up his other paw, his fingers splayed. One by one, he tucked his fingers away, counting off seconds, until he'd formed a fist. Having decided the cops were now out of earshot, he limped his way around the corner. The rat began to skittle after him, but was forced to stop and poke the beaver to get her attention, her otherwise being fully occupied with the phone in her claws.

Without waiting for either of them, Dribs knocked on the front door. It took even less time for Mrs. Wesiltone to answer.

" _God_ , gimme strength! I already told ya, you horn-headed dumbass! Duke ain't here no more!" she began to rant, before noticing the new figures at the door. "Oh, nevah mind. Who the hell are you?"

Dribs rubbed the back of his head, urgently looking from side to side. "I'm Doriano. Y'know, yer nephew?"

Mrs. Wesiltone leaned in a bit, squinting and scanning the weasel's form. After a while, she allowed him a small and very brief smile, disappearing once the other two mammals had caught up. "Ah yeah, I remember you. The bomb-throwin' anarchist with a crappy leg. That's how yer pa put it, anyway. An' who the hell are these two jokers?" she said, leaning to the side and waving a paw in the direction of the rat.

Dribs rubbed one of his twisted whiskers. "They're some, uh… friends o' mine. That's Dino…" he said, pointing at the rat, "…and that's Phern," addressing the beaver. "Can we come in? Duke needs our help with-"

" _Cousin Dribs!_ " a familiar voice piped up from further within the apartment, though getting rapidly louder. Soon enough, Duke Weaselton – now having replaced his lost tank top and put on a fresh pair of sweatpants – stepped into view from behind his ma, who stepped away, resigning herself to being spoken over _again._ Duke almost forcibly grabbed his cousin by the shoulder and pulled him in for a hug. He grunted and almost tripped up, his injured leg having been disregarded.

"Good to see ya, cousin! Y'know, I thought they threw you in the pound again. What 'appened, didya play possum an' get thrown into the sewer? Guess you've had practice, eh, eh? So how's that campaign o' yours goin', anyhow? Still fundraisin', doin' errands for wolverines?"

In response, Dribs forcibly pushed his cousin off of him, almost wildly twitching. "Duke, d'you mind?! I was outta the city for a _reason_ , then I come back an' yer askin' all these questions right underneath all the freakin' government spy planes! Let's just get inside, already!"

Duke flinched upon the sight, stepping back inside the house; though thankfully, he noticed, not so much to trigger that stupid fur-dryer. He rubbed at his neck, removing a few errant bits of sweat he just created. " _Alright_ , cousin! If you were in some kinda rush, y'only needed to say so!" he said, knowing better than to question Dribs too much. He knew Dribs was involved in some far deeper stuff than he was, and he'd rather keep himself in the dark. For his own safety.

Turning around and keeping a close eye on where he stepped, Duke turned around, stepped aside and beckoned his guests into the apartment, even bowing for that extra flourish. He noticed that his ma had evidently gotten bored and wandered off somewhere else during the introductions. Good for him; less chance of any awkward questions being raised.

Once all of the guests had made their way inside, Duke briefly poked his head outside, surveying the area. Checking for cops. Or Minsko's hitmammals. Or possibly even these 'government spy planes' that his cousin kept going on about. Hell, maybe he was right. They could be there. Felt like everyone was after him, now. This whole situation might be some government experiment to see how royally screwed one mammal can get in just a few days.

Duke shook his head – perhaps trying to shake off the situation – pulling himself back inside and closed the door. This was no way to be acting in company; otherwise he'd just become a carbon copy of his cousin, soon enough. He needed to show classic Wesiltone resolve.

"Gentlemammals, gentlemammals!" he began to say, standing up straight as a board and putting on his cockiest face, walking on over to the couch. "I got a feelin' we're gonna be here for some time, so please, put yer paws up, put some music on, get a drink from the bar… uh, that is, the kitchen! O-or some food, you can also do that! Make yerselves at home! Mi casa, su casa!"

Duke's crew proceeded to sit down on the couch in front of the TV, with Dart the rat perching himself atop an armrest. " _Aaaaaalright!_ " Duke clapped very loudly, drawing all eyes to him. With his ma still in earshot, it seemed like an ideal time to play boss. "Everyone, gather 'round the TV! C'mon, we ain't got all day! So… it's been a while, so before we get down to brass tacks, I think a re-introduction is… in… order…" Duke began to trail off as he did a double-take.

These weren't the mammals he was expecting! Well, one of them was. He'd recognise his trembling, limping cousin any day of the week. But these other two mammals were strangers. Strangers his cousin had just invited into his home. His cousin. Inviting strangers. Into his home. His _paranoid_ cousin. It didn't add up at all!

Duke decided he'd scan them over. He started with the beaver, his jaw dropping slightly at the sight of her; not that she reacted at all, since she was busy with her phone. Using his 'honed senses of deduction', Duke reckoned the slightly-chubby beaver was obviously younger than everyone else in the room. She was probably some sort of juvenile delinquent, not unlike himself at her age. She wore a red cardigan with a horribly mismatched blue dress, some kind of choker, spiked wristbands, and perhaps most alarmingly, bright pink fur transplants on her head that she'd tied back. And no she-delinquent of the rodent persuasion would be complete without jewelled buckteeth. It was always with the buckteeth…

He then shifted his gaze over to the pack rat. He looked a lot like Dart, which he realised probably threw him off when they first came in. But Dart definitely had brown fur; this rat had grey fur. He also lacked the confidence that Dart had. The rat wore a messy black suit he'd clearly just thrown on and didn't even bother to iron, and he did his best to stare out the window with eyes of concern, wringing his little scaly hands together.

"Uh… cousin, who the hell are these two clowns?" Duke finally asked, folding his arms, consciously channelling his ma. "I asked for Dinks and Dart, not… generic rodent A an' generic rodent B!"

"Well, the thing is, cousin," Dribs began, managing to turn his trembling into teeth-baring and digging his claws into his cane, "when ya screwed up as bad as ya did, turns out it's real hard to get yer old partners to go along with ya! I found Dinks, but he's m… m-moochin' off his mouse girlfriend, the security guard, an' he told me that Dart quit the game to go into go-kart racin'; neither o' them are gonna drop their new cushy, b…b-big-mammal-provided lifestyles for another shot at gettin' sent to Verdant Corrals by y-yer graces!" he began to tremble again, his cane shaking, his eyes twitching at regular intervals. "S-so I – at _great… risk…_ to myself, I might add – went all around the district to find replacements! I hope y'appreciate m-my sacrifice, cousin! Any _one_ o' those f-freakin' crooks coulda been an undercover cop, or _worse!_ "

"Well, how d'ya know they aren't anyway?" Duke asked with brow exaggeratedly raised, leaning forward. "I mean, where'd ya pick 'em up? A box in the back of a truck or somethin'? I don't s'pose that truck said 'ZOE'S PRETTY DAFFODILS' on the side, did it?" he said, gesturing to indicate the words on an imaginary sign in front of him.

"Don't… _say_ stuff like that, cousin!" Dribs hissed, banging his cane on the floor for emphasis. "I f-forgot to take my meds this mornin'! That's _not_ what I wanna hear when they wear off! I got _issues!_ " he said through his teeth, now having upgraded from 'trembling' to full-on 'shaking'.

"Alright, _capo_. I'll hear it from _them_. Startin' with…" Duke began, miming 'eeny, meeny, miney, mail, catch a weasel by his tail…' as he pointed at the anxious rat and the disinterested beaver in succession. He found himself thrown off once he remembered how horribly speciesist the rhyme was, though, his strong point suddenly faulting. He couldn't just enable such long-standing injustices against mustelid-kind to persist. …Even if he was a criminal, to be sure. He had to be respected!

He cleared his throat. Wasn't he supposed to be picking someone? Oh yes, he noticed. The rat, whom his finger had last pointed at. Reminding himself to replace with 'weasel' with… 'vulpine', perhaps, next time he did the eeny meeny routine, he straightened his stance, pulling up his sweatpants. "Mister Rat! What's your deal, eh?"

The rat, who had already been attempting to discreetly fidget away from Dribs, was taken off guard; he looked at Duke, eyes wide and pointing at himself for a moment. "Oh! Uh… right, I haven't said anythin' yet. O' course," he said, clearing his own throat and attempting to straighten his tie, to no avail. "I'm Dino Ratto! I'll be honest with ya, I'm new to this whole thing. I've got a job an' an income, but I have a bit of a… gamblin' problem. Oh yeah, an' I need to pay a fine. Real big one. An' I have a very bad hoardin' problem, too. So when your… cousin, was it? Yeah. When your cousin said I could get that money real quick-like if I just went along with… whatever it is you have planned, how could I say no? I-I mean, us rats, we're… well, It goes without sayin' that we're small and not easily noticed. So I think…" he started to sound more confident, slouching back on the armrest and putting his claws behind his head, "…I can be of use to ya. But because I don't claim to be an expert on the, uh… organised crime… circuit… I'm just gonna sit here an' listen. I won't say nothin', I won't question nothin'."

Taking it all in, Duke began to rub his twisted whiskers with one paw, putting his other paw behind his back. "Hmm… well, I gotta say, I 'dig' that attitude! …But it seems a li'l _too_ convenient for me, don't it? And 'Dino _Ratto_ '? That's a mighty appropriate name for a rat… maybe a li'l _too_ appropriate!"

"Cousin, I s-swear…" Dribs hissed out under his breath, barely stopping himself from compulsively biting on his cane.

Duke squinted at the rat, who now seemed to be looking away, possibly to avoid arousing suspicion! But when he took a closer look, he could've sworn he'd seen that mug before. Especially when it was putting on a more complacent – dare he say _smarmy_ – expression. The face seemed far too fake. And what sort of rat would wear a suit to a casual occasion? …Not that this _was_ a casual occasion, Duke reminded himself. God no. This occasion was of the utmost importance! Frankly, Duke knew he was being generous simply for not kicking them all out for their obvious levity. Especially the beaver punk. But still, that rat's face…

"Wait a sec… are you Dino Roditore? The lounge singer?"

Almost immediately, Dino's fake expression was gone and he found himself rapidly looking between the curious Duke, the equally-curious Dribs, and the front door. Which was now closed. No way for a rat like him to get out.

"Um… no!" he said, tugging at his sweaty collar. "I'm no lounge singer! Hell, who does that anymore, huh? I mean, what rat in their right mind would seriously sing… in a lounge? For what might as well be minimum rodents' wage? And get all his freakin' money stolen over the internet? Not me; _I'm_ not that dumb! O' course, I never heard of any 'Dino Roditore', but whoever he is, he'd be _preeeetty_ dumb to do… the things I just said!"

"Uh-huh," Duke said, nodding. Without wishing to waste any more time, he turned his attention to the beaver. "An' what about you, chippy?"

A pause. Everyone currently in the room looked over at the beaver, who continued to obliviously tap away at her phone.

"Uh… Chipwick? Chippendale? Chipotle? I'm talkin' to ya!"

"…Huh?" she finally looked up from her phone. Looking around at everyone else, she finally cottoned onto what was happening. Not that it got her eyes anything further than half-lidded. "Oh, right. I have a name, yeah. Phern," she said, before immediately going back to her phone.

Duke rubbed his chin. "Phern _who?_ "

She groaned, rolling her eyes. " _Phern Imogen Staker_. Geez…"

"I see. And what d' _you_ hope to get outta this?"

She groaned once more; much sharper this time, and 'slapped' her phone into her lap. "I don't know! What are you, my dad or somethin'?"

The sudden 'outburst' of sorts prompted Duke to step back a bit, cautiously, his paws out. "Alright, alright, calm down, lady!"

"D-don't worry 'bout her, cousin, I know her," Dribs cut in, momentarily twitching back like he was fighting some invisible force pushing against his head. "Sh-she used to help me steal gasoline from the… f-faculty at Bushveld University. Trust me, cousin, we had long discussions on the mistakes of former mayor Tusken's administration! Sh-she's good!"

"Well, _you're_ s'posed to be the paranoid one, so I'll take yer word for it," Duke said, regaining his appearance of confidence. He clapped again, inhaling sharply. "SO! Since at least one o' yous is new to this game, ya got any pertinent questions y'wanna pose to me, Duke Weaselton?"

Dino raised his hand. "So…" Duke said, turning his attention to the rat. "Whaddya wanna know?"

"Yeah, uh… what exactly are we doin' here?"

"Now that is a good question!" Duke replied, pointing both fingers at the rat in a show of confidence. A show of confidence that quickly deteriorated as his own eyes began to twitch and indistinct sounds began to splutter out his mouth. "Uh… w-w… I… th-the thing, uh… well…"

He stopped to slap himself on the side of his snout, since his ma wasn't around to do it for him. This almost reflexively made him stand at attention, clearing his throat and puffing his chest like he was about to address a far larger crowd than he was actually addressing. "Well, my good rodent! Are we about to give a great big finger to the big mammal and show 'em we're free to do whatever the hell we want? Yeah! Yeah, we freakin' are!"

"Yaaaaay…" Duke could hear at the edge of his attention span, coming from a very non-absorbed Phern Staker.

Duke was about to point at her to offer a 'snappy, totally-on-the-fly' retort, but Dino cut in while he was busy thinking of one. "Well… okay, but ya kinda didn't really answer my question. You just asked a completely different question and answered _that_ question."

Duke paused again as he tried to think of something else, his eyes darting around the room. "Yyyyyyes, that's true, smart-ass! I-in any case, uh… um… ah yeah! What we're doin' is… we're…" he slapped himself again, making him stand back to attention. This time, however, he turned his head in the direction of the stairs his ma had ascended earlier and raised his voice. _"…We're about to sort out some travel arrangements! To be precise, we're goin' to figure out a way to smuggle yours truly outta the country undetected!_ "

With that out the way, the weasel quickly pulled back towards his 'audience', craning forward and began to whisper. "That's not _actually_ why yer all here, I'm just sayin' that for the benefit o' my ma so she don't start freakin' meddlin' in my business again! She yells at me 'cause she _wants_ me to disobey, 'less I turn into some namby-pamby grazer! I am a _weasel_! An' a weasel can't rely on his ma to help 'im weasel! That'd be a freakin' insult to my dignity an' the dignity o' the Wesiltone family's long an' proud history o' self-determination an' sheer guts!" he lectured, repeatedly slamming a fist onto his other palm.

"Y-yeah, real great history!" Dribs suddenly spoke up, rapidly tapping at his cane. "An' look where that got us! Our family's so-called 'criminal empire' has been reduced to four weasels an' two… h-hangers-on! Yer f…f-freakin' deluded, cousin!"

It was then that Duke abruptly dropped any pretence of subtlety and just started yelling. "Oh, will you _shaaaaaddaaaaap_ , cousin?! _You're_ almost as bad as ma!"

" _I HEARD THAT, YOU TACTLESS LI'L INGRATE!"_ Mrs. Wesiltone bellowed in from the other room.

Duke sighed and briefly turned back to face the stairs. _"Sorry, ma!"_ he sent back before returning his attention to his audience. "Now… what we're really doin' is plannin'… a robbery! Now… Dribs here may have lead you to believe that I'm some kinda incompetent, 'cause my last attempt at a robbery went about as well as the shoot for _Apocalypse Cow_! Well, since that incident, I've been cyclin' and re-cyclin' everythin' that happened over an' over in this magic factory up here!" he said, pointing at his skull.

"Um, cousin…" Dribs attempted to interrupt, to no avail.

"…Goin' to jail made me wiser. More careful. More of a thinkin' weasel, y'know. This time, we're gonna get away with the big haul, an' we're gonna do it right under the stupid, gawkin' noses o' the big mammal! An' I think I've figured out exactly why that heist went as badly as it did the first time. In fact, I can confirm that there are two; count 'em, _two_ ," he reiterated, holding up two fingers, "main reasons! First of all, Dart! Matter o' fact, I'm glad that dirty rat ain't here – no offence, Dino – 'cause he was completely useless! I told him a million times to bring a car that could carry all of us an' the loot, an' he shows up in a freakin' toymobile! It'd'a been better if we just sold the freakin' car to some hippo pre-schooler for five bucks! An' Dinks weren't much better, since all he did was bring Dart into it an' spent the rest o' the heist seein' if he could shoot through bulletproof glass!"

"Cousin…"

"Oh yeah, an' Dribs' attempts to cut in brings me nicely onto the _second_ reason we screwed up last time! The team fell apart! Soon as things started goin' wrong, all we did was start runnin' around like we'd been beheaded or somethin', yellin' at each other, blamin' each other for who's fault was what an' who ratted out who… which as we now know is a pointless argument, 'cause it was all Dart's fault! If he brought a bigger car we coulda at least got away from the cops! It couldn't even support our combined weight, for ferret's sake!"

" _Cousin!"_

Duke finally groaned, throwing his paws into the air. _"What?!"_

"Cousin, whaddya tellin' 'em all this for?!" Dribs said, now grinding his cane against the wooden floor. "I s-s…s-specifically didn't tell 'em precisely so they wouldn't get put off, you idiot!"

Duke raised a finger to retort, only to stop with his jaw open as his cousin's words sank in. Duke's eyes widening, he quickly checked up on his two guests. Phern was still as disinterested as ever, tapping away at her phone. Good. Dino… well, Dino hadn't really changed. He still looked anxious, but that was probably because he was new. Couldn't fault him, really. Everyone goes back to being a kit when taking their first step into the game; Duke just had the good fortune of having actually started back then. He'd had all the time in the world to master the art of weaselling, which was why _he_ was in charge here!

"Yeah?! Well… I just felt like lettin' 'em know! In case you gave 'em any false impressions! I know everyone thinks I'm some coward who sticks to the cheap but risk-free jobs, but that ain't true! I'm _always_ willin' to branch out, an' any mammal with any degree of empathy's gonna find it reassurin' to know that I already had my trial run; this time we're doin' things for real!"

"Cousin _, admit it_!" Dribs belted back in his face, now practically hugging his cane as he shook. "It was your fault an' your fault alone! Of all the freakin' jewellery stores in town, you pick the elephant-size one! We needed three mammals to carry out one goddamn ring! There ain't a car in the world that coulda carried all o' that while bein' d-drivable by a rat! An' don't forget the rotatin' door, neither!"

"Okay, there was no way I coulda known about the door; it literally broke while we were usin' it! That was just bad luck! Not like _your_ genius decision to jump over the freakin' counter an' break yer leg!" Duke yelled, pointing at the cane his cousin was keeping close to his chest. As he saw him self-consciously hold it away from him, Duke cleared his throat and stood up straight once more. "Alright, we're gettin' off-track here. Let's just agree that it was a combination o' Dart an' bad luck that screwed up our heist! All in favour o' this motion say 'aye'. _AYE!_ " he quickly blurted out, holding his paw up. "Motion carried, discussion ovah!"

"That was not a freakin' vote!" Dribs once more slammed his cane on the ground, loud enough to make Dino jump. "That was dictatorship, cousin! Dictatorship! I f-freakin' hate dictatorship! This is the problem, cousin! Yer dictatorial methods, thinkin' yer the big mammal, the 'king' o' the operation! We're a _team!_ Yer gonna sink us again, I know it! It's every mammal for 'imself!"

"Well, great, you've officially lost it… knew it was only a matter o' time. Alright, let's try democracy again, shall we? Has anyone got any questions that ain't got anythin' to do with all this crap?"

Dino raised his hand again. "Dino, the rat pack's pack rat!" Duke said, pointing in his direction. "What else can I enlighten ya 'bout?"

"Yeeaahh… I already sorta knew what we were doin', but… well, what _exactly_ are we doin'? Like, who, what, where?"

"Ah!" Duke deflated once more, realising that he was wasting enough time already delaying things. If only that stupid contact would hurry his ass up.

"Well, the truth is," he began, "I don't know _who_ we're robbin' yet, or how we're robbin' 'em, or what we're robbin', or what time we're doin' it, or any o' that crap. _BUT_ … before you all start whinin' like kits again, I got it covered! Couple hours ago, I called up an ol' contact o' mine," he said, putting his paw close to his ear with a phone gesture, "real high up in the… uh… auto industry! An' he tells me he's got a powerful friend who might need a favour doin', an' call me optimistic, but I'm willin' to bet he'd pay a pretty penny for our services, even if he wanted us to steal the formula for that… meat substitute that they make from mushrooms, whatevah the hell it's called!"

"Gyah!" Dribs suddenly went, twitching so hard he almost jumped off his seat. "We ain't gonna be workin' for the big mammal, are we?! I hate the big mammal! _He's_ the reason we're doin' this crap in the first place, an' not swimmin' in our executive swimmin' pools while gettin' served Martenes by those peace foxes in bikinis an' snortin' catnip off our own belly buttons!"

"Reeee-lax, cousin! Desperate times call for desperate measures! All we gotta do… is wait."

Duke leaned back against the TV, ending on a high note. A high note worthy of a smarmy smile, even. A smile that stuck around for a good ten seconds before he checked the clock on the wall opposite.

This could take a while.

* * *

On the precipice between the high-rises of Otterdam, the not-so-high rises of Acorn Heights, and the western border between Savannah Central and Sahara Square, the Otterdam Aquatic Centre stood. Inside this wave-shaped building was the city's largest and most popular swimming pool. Its location made a lot of sense; it attracted the heat-stricken residents of Sahara Square, the sporty, cosmopolitan residents of midtown Savannah Central, and of course, was easily accessible to a certain population of semi-aquatic mammals indicated by the name of the district it is located in.

The pool's sheer size and extreme variance in depth clearly indicated it was meant for mammals of all sizes residing within Zootopia. From swarms of mice on the shallow ends, to clustered groups of otters further down, to large seals and hippos keeping space between each other at the deepest end. Kits, pups and other juveniles were forbidden from entering at this hour, but that did not stop the vast room from being consumed by a cacophony of splashes, chattering and the occasional whistle-and-yell combo from one of the leopard seal pool guards, and of course, the place reeked of chlorine.

In the midst of all this activity, Small Fry the red squirrel seemed tiny, both figuratively and literally. He sat on the edge of the pool, in the area that could be considered 'deep' for an otter, having wisely traded all his usual clothes for a pair of green swimming trunks. In one paw he held a stopwatch, but in spite of all the activity, he kept his gaze locked firmly on the stopwatch he held in his paw, his other paw readied to shield himself from any splashes. He paid particular attention to the time, for he knew that past a certain point, a certain something would happen, and at the precise moment his ear twitched, he was to stop the clock.

Soon enough, Small Fry could see a distinct long, brown, furry shape approach him from beneath the water, and he felt his ear twitch as Dmitry Minsko suddenly burst forth above the surface - instinctively stopping the clock at that moment. Dmitry stopped to catch his breath, floating towards the edge of the pool. The mink, too, had been wise enough not to go swimming in a suit, having traded it for some black trunks.

Detective Oates was surveying all these happenings from some distance away, having just emerged into the room. While he had to question the wisdom of showing up to a swimming pool in his usual attire, he knew it was a good thing he was wearing a tie; it was what he needed to keep him focused on the task at hand, lest he get nostalgic about his athletics days. 'I could have gone Animalympic', it'd always go, 'before I lent my skills to justice'. Even the detective had to admit it was getting old. Much like he was. Inconvenient, but true.

This was no good; he was getting distracted, he realised, flicking the side of his long snout to bring him back to speed. Nickering to psyche himself up, he began to walk alongside the pool, his hooves making a distinct 'clop' sound against the tiled floor. His badge drew a lot of attention from onlookers; at the shallow end, a group of rodents and the beaver making waves for them with his tail gazed at him, as did a series of mustelids floating across in specialised plastic spheres.

By the time he'd approached Dmitry and his squirrel companion, the mink had climbed out of the pool, his soaked fur dripping, and had sat down next to his squirrel companion. Said squirrel exchanged glances with Oates as he approached.

"Mr. Minsko?" Oates said, putting his fore-hooves on his hips.

"…Ah! _Privet_!" Minsko began, slotting the words between his heavy breaths. "Good afternoon… it is a good day for physical exercise, yes? Especially that which puts you back in touch with roots, yes?" he asked, leaning over Small Fry's shoulder to take a look at the time he had recorded. "This is good news, it is. Zero-point-twenty second improvement," he took another breath, stretching his arms from side to side. "I like this sort of progress. It is, how you say, reflection of life, no? One must gnaw a little here, a little there, and before you know it, you gnaw straight into earth's core. Something my friend here should know about, yes?" Minsko finished, chuckling. Small Fry nodded in response, but his look was clearly unfocused, like it was an instinctual response. "You look like you could swim well for horse; you ever indulged in aquatic pursuits, Mister…?"

Detective Oates hadn't paid much attention to Dmitry's words; none of them were important, that much he knew. He was clearly trying to put him at ease, distract him from his duties; he had known this was something he did regularly. The squirrel's reaction told him everything.

"Mm-hmm," was all Oates said in response. He took hold of his badge and held it in front of him. "Detective Quail Oates, ZPD. Since you asked, yes, though I used to be a track runner. I could have gone Animalympic before I lent my skills to justice."

Oates coughed as he realised. Damn. He said it again. Oh well.

The horse cleared his throat. "I'm here to ask you some questions about a case. I presume you're aware that your car was stolen and destroyed following a lengthy pursuit last night."

Minsko, only half-paying attention to him, delayed his answer, pointing up a claw to indicate thought. "…Yes, I am aware of that. It is very common where I come from, so I understand need to ask; I may have become so desensitised it could slip under my radar, no? But thanks anyway," he said as he and the squirrel stood up, beginning to slowly saunter alongside the pool.

Oates followed with ease, removing his notepad and pen from his belt. "I see," he began, making a note that Minsko hadn't denied anything yet. "You'd probably like to know that we've identified the one responsible for the incident. Dante Wesiltone, also known as Duke Weaselton. Least Weasel. I don't suppose you know him?"

Dmitry began to brush water off his arms, gazing out the enormous window on the side of the room. "…Nnnnno, cannot say it… what is the phrase? Rings a cowbell? Uh… no, never heard of this weasel!" he said with wide eyes, shrugging his shoulders. "It is shame it has to be weasel, though. I mean, here I am, coming all the way to Zootopia from the old country to contribute to the economy in a reasonable fashion, and then opportunistic thugs like this… 'Duke Weaselton' feel need to come in and ruin it for all of us! Mammals like that, they are disgrace to honest mustelids everywhere! Mustelids that raised this part of the city! …Very interesting story behind Otterdam, by the way." he suddenly lowered his voice. "It may have been otters, to be sure, but it is inspirational tales like that that made me want to move here. Anyone truly can be anything, yes?"

Oates took a moment to look back at the squirrel, but unfortunately, it seemed he'd cottoned onto his observation; he'd now resorted to staring off into the window alongside his boss, ignoring his presence. "Well, as a member of the ZPD, I don't feel I'd be able to respond to that without in some way colourin' it with my experiences. The racer at the front's gonna think the world is too slow, the racer at back will think it's too fast."

Dmitry momentarily stopped in his tracks to click with his claws, clucking his tongue at the same time, and cast a grin at Oates. "A-ha! Very true! I think I like you, Detective. You seem like good mammal to have at party, especially mustelid party. Is always good to have token large mammal, but if I pick any _large_ mammal, I pick horse, every time."

"I see…" Oates said, raising a brow. "So you say you don't know Duke Weaselton. Fair enough. What about… Doriano Wesiltone? Gerry Dinka? D'Artagnan Pettigrew? Uh…" Oates began to think 'deeper'; he was sure there was someone he was missing. Some other figure in drug-land… someone connected to… Dribs, maybe? "…Chuckles? Any of these names sound familiar?"

"…I am afraid not, no," Minsko said, rubbing his chin. Soon his face twisted into a look of disbelief as he finally cottoned onto something. "'Chuckles', you say? A mother actually called her kit that? You have strangest names in this country. Fry, you hear of these strangers before?"

Dmitry turned to look at his squirrel companion, who merely shook his head in silence, still staring out the window.

"Well, looks like matter is settled," Dmitry said, turning back to a sceptical horse. "With all due respect to local culture, this may be technological age, but we do not all know each other. I mean, I barely know how to use MuzzleTime. In old country, we prefer to do business vis-à-vis," he said, pointing at his own eyes and Oates in succession, the strength of the gesture faltering soon after. "…Is that how you say it? You see, is very old language, means visage-to-visage, yes?"

"I understand what you mean," Oates began, brushing a bit of his mane out of his eyes and allowing himself to slouch slightly. He knew he'd need to get a bit more casual if he wanted to get anything out of Dmitry; stoop to his level. Otherwise they'd be talking two different languages.

"In my line of work, you'd be surprised how often you find mammals who know each other. When you're racin' in a little-known league, you learn to not pay attention when you end up in the same stables. And I understand the whole 'culture shock' thing, too; my parents came here from Shireland."

Minsko's face lit up; he'd almost look excited, like a five-year-old who'd just learned this country existed. "Shireland, eh? Never been there, myself. You been there, Fry?"

Once again, Small Fry simply shook his head.

Dmitry chuckled, folding his arms. "Didn't think so. Fry here, he is not very outgoing mammal, as I'm sure you can tell. Downright workaholic, even. Doesn't even get in pool after getting changed. Seems crazy, I know," he shrugged, sighing with resignation, " _but_ is actually quite familiar to me; in Bearuska, is common to go along with things even when they seem silly. Means we suffer a lot, but hey, I'm sure that's something you Shirish can relate to. What does not kill your community makes it stronger, eh?" he asked, waving in Oates' direction.

"Yeah," Oates nodded, beginning to slightly swing one of his legs back and forth. "It's just like the quadriceps; one o' the most important muscles for a racer. Damage and reinforce, damage and reinforce. That's what my coach used to say. …Though he also used to say that horses can't swim."

Oates cleared his throat and regained his posture. That was enough 'casual' for now. "Anyway. I have a suspicion that the incident with your car didn't happen in a vacuum."

The mink scratched his wet head, his brow furrowing. "Vacuum? I am confused, what does housekeeping have to do with…?"

"I mean, it wasn't just a crime of opportunity. I think someone might have hired Duke to steal your car."

"Oh? What makes you think that? Who would want to do that?" Minsko stood up straight, pointing at himself defensively. "I am just a simple foreign businessmammal! Isn't that right, Fry?"

Small Fry briefly looked back at the pair of them to give a short nod.

"Well, everyone has enemies," Oates said, noting down that Dmitry _was_ now denying a lot of things. Probably. "Especially the darkhorses in the race. Perhaps you could name some?"

"No. I cannot," Minsko said apologetically, shaking his head and shrugging. "I am sorry, but my memory is not too good, you know… when you work in club business, is very lively. Bar tabs get negotiated, VIMs come and go on occasion… you know, perhaps the odd brawl now and then."

"Hmm… see, I'm not so sure," Oates began to summarise, lowering his notes to step further. "Because after your car… exploded – and we believe it was from a ruptured hydrogen fuel cell – we had our forensics team investigate the wreck, and discovered it had been reinforced. That particular model of car doesn't come with reinforcement as standard, so you must have ordered it as an extra. And perhaps I'm keepin' a closer eye on the sunflower at the side of the track than the track itself, but those of us with Shirish blood, we've got a strong… 'gut sense', shall we say. I think you were preparing yourself for a confrontation with an enemy of yours."

Dmitry and Small Fry stopped in their tracks to look at each other for a moment. The squirrel wordlessly shrugged his own little shoulders. Soon, Dmitry was, once again, clucking his tongue and pointing at Oates, grinning. "Well, you certainly have vivid imagination, I tell you that. Mammals in this country, you love a good story, much more than they do back home; prefer to focus on boring, dreary reality when starving and broke in dairy farm being attacked by blizzard. I appreciate that in a mammal! But, like I said, I do not remember, I am just a simple foreign businessmammal!" he said, shrugging again. "But… it is true, I may have accumulated enemies. Various…" he trailed off, circling his fingers around, "non-specific enemies. Is always good to be prepared. If you ask the raccoon who sold me the car, he'd tell you same thing."

"I see…" Oates said, pretending to note down all his irrelevant babble. "…And who was it who sold you the car?"

"Phil Rasconovitch, at the… Hamsda showroom in Otterdam. He's a raccoon of many things, to many mammals."

"Phil… yeah, I think I know him…" Oates muttered, shaking his head. That raccoon was no good. A huge reason why it sometimes seemed like judging books by covers is a perfectly viable strategy… a killing blow to a city where 'anyone can be anything'. First Mister Rasconovitch was suspected in the vandalism of multiple used car dealerships, then trespassing into an industrial waste disposal facility, then he became a phony lawyer defending the equally-troublesome Chuckles. And now he was showing up again. "…Guess we _are_ in a li'l known league, after all," he said, remembering something former chief Tusken used to say when he first joined up; when a suspect is on your radar more than three times, you know you're destined to clash with them until either death or prison.

Unfortunately, as he stood there, brushing the bristles on his chin, remembering days past, he was soon propelled back to reality. A hippo opted to – perhaps unwisely – cannonball into the middle section of the pool from a very tall springboard, ignoring the verbal warnings from the pool guard.

Once he hit the water, the three of them were soon caught in the hippo's 'splash radius', soaking them to the skin. Little concern for Dmitry and Small Fry, prepared as they were, but not so much for Oates, who now stood there with his tail having been turned into a mop, his notepad soggy, his hooves shining and his damp clothes sticking to his hair.

The horse tried to shrug it off, nonchalantly putting away his notepad. He nickered, spraying additional globules of water over the smaller mammals. "Thank you, sir," he said, somewhat urgently. "You've been extremely helpful."

With that, he made his exit, the clopping of his hooves now accompanied by the light splash of the miniature puddles that followed him around.

"No problem, detective! _Do svidaniya_ , and good luck catching that bastard weasel!" Dmitry called, giving a brief one-fingered salute. Small Fry, meanwhile, still frowning, gave a _different_ sort of one-fingered salute once his back was turned. Soon, he was out of earshot. Dmitry's expression turned sour, and he whispered to himself…

"…Desperate _mu_ _dak_."

* * *

"Do I _look_ like I'm here to play water polo?!" Finnick said, edging on yelling as he gazed up at the desk. He attempted to tip-toe to get a better view, but was thwarted by the weight of the duffle bag he wore on his back; a bag that was almost as big as him.

"I ain't here on leisure, I'm here on _business_! I know for a _fact_ he's in there, an' I don't plan on stickin' around, neither, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain!" he said, stepping back and gesturing to indicate the depth of the water in any 'dignified' part of the pool; that is, any deeper than mouse-friendly. "All I wanna do is go in there for… I dunno, ten minutes at most, talk to him, an' walk right on out! I ain't payin' three goddamn bucks just for that!"

The otter receptionist stayed perfectly still, not wanting to risk offending the small mammal by leaning over the desk. "Sir, I can't just take you at your word that you're only going in to meet someone," he said, calmly. "If I did that, _anyone_ could say what you're saying in and get in for free; or they could in the brief window of time before I lost my job. If this meeting is so important, surely three dollars isn't much of a price to pay. Or you could always wait for him to come out."

" _Grrgghnnn…_ " Finnick began to growl under his breath, clenching his fists to the point that he could feel them sting. His ears twitched wildly, as he could hear Razor fumbling with a vending machine elsewhere in the room. But he knew he daren't look at him, the loud-mouthed, tactless idiot; that'd just make his rising tide of frustration spill over even further. He looked around the room, desperate for any excuse for him to calm down.

Luck struck at that moment, as he noticed another mammal making an exit; a tall and rather bemused-looking horse in otherwise-smart attire, completely drenched in water. The sight alone made him intensely curious if only for a moment, but it was the sight of the ZPD badge worn around his neck that made him stop seething with rage. For all his own imprudent behaviours, Finnick at least had it hammered into him when he was supposed to reel them in.

"Okay, fine, I'll pay," Finnick said with a sigh, relaxing his posture and turning back to the Aquatic Centre's receptionist. "I don't plan on gettin' banned from _another_ business establishment. I just had a real crappy mornin', y'know? I get agitated real easy…"

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," the otter replied, as Finnick looked down, beginning to rummage through one of his pockets for any change. He soon retrieved three dollars in coins, but soon noticed an embarrassing problem preventing him from handing it over.

"Right, so, um…" he stuttered, trying in vain to reach the top of the reception desk.

"If you're having trouble reaching the desk," the otter said, waving to indicate a much smaller desk nearby, "we could move to the small mammals' desk."

"No. I ain't a small mammal. I ain't a rodent. I can reach. Hnng… geh…" he began to strain, balancing on the very tips of the claws on his toes. It was no good. He'd sooner suffer the indignity of having Razor hand over the money instead of being treated like a mouse. Which reminded him… "Uh… Raze? Razor, a li'l help would be nice!"

"Oh, _you gotta be KIDDIN' ME!_ " the boar yelled at the vending machine as Finnick looked over. "Get unstuck, you stupid-ass piece o' junk!" he attempted to browbeat the machine into submission, facing some unseen issue. When this didn't work, he resorted to banging and shaking the machine around.

Finnick walked in closer to see what exactly he was mad about this time, discovering that he'd paid for a bag of bacon-flavoured potato chips – typical wannabite behaviour, as it were – which had gotten stuck against the glass, costing him his dollar. Which would be a reasonable thing to get mad about if it he wasn't doing it… Razor-style.

"Sir, you'll be asked to leave if you keep banging on the vending machine," the otter called over before Finnick could attempt to counter-yell.

"Why does yo' sickle-phantic musty-ass self care about some other mammals' machines, anyways?" Razor asked in said that 'style', again, pushing himself off the vending machine to point at the otter. "I mean, they can't possibly be payin' yo' ass enough to care about these!"

Finnick, once more, found himself clenching his fists as he attempted to bear through the humiliation and the danger of being in public with this maniac, and again, he felt a sharp sting. But at the corner of his eye, he caught the horse from earlier walking back in, tapping Razor on the shoulder.

"An' what the freakin' hell d'you want?!" he squealed as he turned around, only to flinch upon being greeted with the horse's long, dripping face staring back down at him, and his shining police badge. "Oh… uh… sorry, officer."

The horse wordlessly shoved the boar out of the way, removed a coin from his own pocket, and inserted it into the vending machine. Typing in a number, another bag of potato chips slid off a hook inside the machine, directly above the one that had gotten stuck. Thus, it landed atop the first bag, knocking it out of place and getting it unstuck. The horse quickly kneeled down to retrieve the one he'd paid for and walked off, leaving the boar to look on, dumbfounded.

"Uh… thanks, officer. 'Preciate it," Razor said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.

It was around this time that a grinning Finnick, having felt a strong tickling sensation in his chest, suddenly began to breathlessly laugh for a straight fifteen seconds, booming across the room. "Pff…haaAAHAAAAHAHA _HAHAHAHAHAHA!_ " he went. This was exactly what he needed; all the frustration he'd built up over the morning was unleashed, his laughter like the whistle of a burst balloon.

"'Ey, shut up, midget-ass gekkerer!" Razor attempted to stop him, but it was useless. The fennec had by now been reduced to giggling and even snorting not unlike a wild boar, leaning against the reception desk, helplessly slapping it.

"Ehehe… ahah…" Finnick stopped to clutch his chest, "oh, God… ahah… that was… so much for stickin' it to the police, huh?" he asked, pointing back at him.

Snorting angrily, Razor hastily retrieved his bag of chips from the vending machine, holding it out in front of him. "You ain't gonna tell no-one 'bout this, 'less I shove this bag o' chips up yo'-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting a date?" a nearby voice cut in, partly obscured by a mouth full.

All three parties present – Finnick, Razor and the receptionist – turned to face the source. Dmitry Minsko and Small Fry had wandered in, both of them now wearing matching track jackets with their swimming trunks. Dmitry had put his glasses back on, one paw in pocket, the other paw holding the granola bar from which he was eating.

"…Just joking, you know I love you both!" he said, before turning to address the otter receptionist. "Very nice team dynamic they encourage around here. Back home, arguments just lead to everyone getting horribly murdered in the woods."

The otter awkwardly stared for a moment, biting his lip. "…Right."

"Ah! Apologies, even after twelve years I still cannot remember local manners! Here, for your trouble," Dmitry said in an attempt at conciliation, pulling out a five-dollar bill from his pocket and sliding it over the desk.

"Um… thank you, sir," the otter responded, hesitantly taking the tip. "Have a nice day."

"You too!" Dmitry said with a grin-and-point, before turned to leave, addressing the others. "Gentlemammals, shall we get our 'asses' outside?"

Dmitry was the first out the front door, with Finnick, adjusting the straps on his bag, not far behind. Razor's response was slow, as he attempted to distract himself from the ongoing conundrum by loudly opening up his bag of chips while mumbling something to himself about being made a 'grazer' in public. Small Fry was the last to leave, as he took a moment to turn back to the receptionist, silently miming a chatty mouth with his paw; a mime-chatty mouth which soon turned into a mime-gun, with which he mimed shooting him in the head.

The four of them headed outside to the parking lot, bathed in the midday sunlight. With the colossal monstrosity that was Downtown hill looming over them, and the heatwaves from nearby Sahara Square already making themselves apparent, Finnick and Razor rushed to follow Dmitry to his car. His _other_ car, that is – a small white Hamsda hatchback, a Civilian Type-M – a much more functional alternative to the sports car he had lost.

Dmitry unlocked the car and casually clambered into the driver's seat, with Small Fry in the passenger seat and the two debt collectors in the back seats.

"So… Misters Chamberlain and Jackson…" Dmitry said, turning back to face them as he chewed on the last of his granola bar, discarding his now-empty wrapper on the dashboard. "It is so good of you to show up for your shift today! Please, do make yourselves at home in the back seat of my car. I'd ask if you want coffee from the Snarlbucks across the street, but at this point it'd be a little redundant."

"Mister Minsko, I'd like to apologise for bein' so late today," Finnick said with his paws out, pleadingly. "I mean, we woulda got Antonov's money to ya sooner, but Phil Rasconovitch had to run to the bank, then Raze made me drive all the way over to the Hutch Sisters' to pick up some drugs, as y'all know, an' we had a li'l problem with a meter maid on the way out…"

"Ah yes, I remember getting that phone call from the elder Hutch, which means that Mister Jackson has compromised the security of her, and therefore, _our_ operation…" Dmitry paused to swallow and turn to Small Fry, who shook his head in disapproval. It was during this lull in the conversation that they noticed the sound of Razor obliviously and messily crunching away at his bacon-flavour chips. All three of them looked at him and the crumbs he was scattering on the back seat; not even Razor needed to say 'what?' before he stopped.

"…But let's put that to one side for a moment," Dmitry continued. "In all seriousness, you could have spent the afternoon at the _Cirque Du Souris_ watching sloths do slow-motion trapeze jumps and elephants cycling across tightropes for all I care, just as long as you have Antonov's money when you eventually come to me." Dmitry pointed to Finnick's bag. "I'm assuming that bag isn't full of mouldy coconuts."

"Oh, yeah. O' course," Finnick said, fidgeting about in his seat as he removed the bag from his shoulder. He soon passed it over to Minsko, who unzipped it, inspecting the contents. Small Fry also leaned in to get his own, independent check. After a few moments, they both nodded.

"Well, seems like everything's in order, so you're all good!"

"…Wait…" Finnick almost wheezed out after a lengthy pause, briefly looking over at Razor. He rubbed the inside of his ear. "Aren't y'gonna yell at us for messin' up the Hutch Sisters' security arrangements?"

"That is a very good question, Mister Chamberlain, and I will give you the answer," Dmitry declared with another point. "You see… under normal circumstances, I would be… what's the phrase… 'pissed off'," he said with 'air quotes', "but Antonov and myself have been reconsidering the arrangement I worked out with those two little bunnies to manufacture 'Primal Jazz', as it was. Now, I'm sure you will not take it personally when I say the exact details of our discussion are on a need-to-know basis, but the shortening is… we don't like the fact that my single biggest source of income hinges on a pair of Dylo-smoking College dropouts. And, on a more business-oriented note, we think we could make a lot more money if we just started manufacturing Primal Jazz ourselves. The only problem is that we need the formula from them; preferably for free. But once that's been worked out, you two can rest assured, we'll all be… how you say it… 'loaded'!"

Minsko paused momentarily as he looked at Small Fry, who rubbed a thumb and finger together. "I say this because I remember the concerns Mister Jackson here raised before about his pay rate. Which reminds me… your cut of Antonov's cash. Small Fry, if you please?"

It was at this moment that Razor began to pay more attention, sitting forward and grinning with anticipation; though Finnick cut in to hold his paw out and receive the money, giving him a look that indicated the boar's hoof was too greasy and crumb-stained to take it.

The squirrel rummaged around inside Finnick's bag, soon bringing out a wad of cash in unevenly-sized bills. He handed it off to Dmitry, who started to count it. "Let me see… so, you brought in 62,000 in total… five percent of that would be 3,100 dollars to share between you! Not a bad cut for three months' worth of Antonov's debts, eh?" he said, handing the cash to the fennec.

"Thank you very much, Mister Minsko," Finnick said, nodding, as he gently transferred it from the mink's paws to his. "So, uh… d'you want us to… 'liberate' the Primal Jazz formula?"

"I'm afraid not. Those two bunnies will recognise you, and I can't afford to take any risks. Don't worry about it; I'll look for a professional, someone from out of town. I like the initiative, though. You'll get far in this business with such a forward-thinking attitude."

Before Minsko could say anything further on the matter, however, he could hear his phone ringing from inside his pocket. Removing it, he glanced at the screen, and Finnick could vaguely see the name displayed: Antonov.

"Hmm, speak of the devil…" he muttered to himself, before raising the phone to his ear. " _Privet_? …Yes, as a matter of fact, I've just received the last collection of the day. ...Yes, they were a little late, but don't worry. They're very good. Brought in a tidy sum. I should introduce you to them sometime. ...Hmm? …What?!" Minsko raised his voice, beginning to fidget about in his seat.

"No, they're not informants! …Yes, one of them is a fox, but- no no, a fennec, not a red fox! …Well, funny you should say that, because the detective came around a few minutes ago, and… no, it's fine! I didn't tell him anything! Nothing important, anyway. I told him who I bought the car from just to shut him up. What? Yes, I know, but… Antonov, please! Calm! _Down!_ We've almost got S.C. covered and you've got the ear of city hall; this is no time to be getting delusional! …N-no, I'm not saying you're delusional, it's just, I've seen too many mammals go drunk with their power and lash out against conspiracies that aren't there. …Yes? No… no, I'm not saying don't run things your way, you just need to get over that survival of the fittest thing; it's of no use to anyone in this day! …Yes, I know, I'm sorry. So… who was it you needed me to meet? …The Pandese? So you want me to, uh… 'collect some takeout'? Right, I'm on my way."

Finnick and Razor didn't even need any prompting to know that this was their cue to leave; though Finnick did have to poke the boar first before he cottoned onto that fact. Exiting the car, they stood on opposite sides and watched as Dmitry started up the engine and lowered the driver's window.

"I'll have more work for you soon, Chamberlain, but just remember one thing: you've only gotten this far because, unlike most of your ex-street gang compatriots, you've had the good sense to not rip me off. Antonov asked me to ask you to keep it that way," he said, squinting menacingly from beneath his glasses, as Small Fry looked over and did a 'we're watching you' gesture.

Dmitry almost instantly regained a sunny expression as he switched on the radio, backing up the car to the sound of foreign pop music. " _Chandra, Brambra, Chandra, Chandra, Bendram_ … _wooaahhh-oooahh, woooaahh-oooaahhh…_ "

As they drove off, Razor continued to scarf on his potato chips. "I dunno 'bout you, Fin, but I freakin' hate that musty ass-clown!"

"Oh, will you cut it out, already?!" Finnick belted back, beginning to walk over to his van, parked some distance away. "Minsko ain't bad! Ya realise there's hundreds o' low-life gang-bangers in Gnu York that'd eat their own mothers for a gig like this? Y'all should be glad I got it before no-one else could!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mister So-High-An'-Mighty-I-Need-A-Freakin'-Stepladder-Just-To-Talk-To-Him! Thank ya for gettin' me a dead-end job workin' as a freakin' truffle hog for a musty ass-clown who's so cheap he won't even give us a ten-percent cut!"

Finnick stopped next to his van to point. "First, couldya atop with the goddamn height jokes?! They were sorta funny the first billion times, but they're gettin' real stale now! Second, you oughta consider yourself lucky just to get _that_!" he said, beginning to compulsively slap one paw against his other. "Do I need to remind y'all that you an' your big freakin' mouth almost got us thrown back into the pen mere _hours_ ago?! Literally the only reason we're still free right now is 'cause that meter maid was eighty years old and couldn't tell the difference between a pred and a delusional-ass wild boar who _thinks_ he's a pred!"

"Ya still don't get it, do ya, Fin?!" Razor yelled back again, screwing up his now-empty bag of potato chips and tossing them onto the ground in front of him. "I act like a crazy-ass killer _on purpose_! It's all part o' my master plan! You're the muscle, you go 'round gettin' us the paper from Minsko, talkin' all tough an' stuff, while I sit in the background, hidin' in plain sight, trickin' all our enemies into thinkin' I'm just a dumb thug, when really I'm secretly plottin' an' plannin' to take us to top o' the game, foo'!"

"Well…" Finnick said exasperatedly, shaking his head, as he opened up his van and pulled himself into the driver's seat. "…If your plan was to lure mammals into a false sense o' security, then _mission accomplished_ , but it ain't for the reasons you think it is! An' what's this about 'takin' us to the top o' the game?' I dunno, I always thought gettin' our fuzzy asses riddled with bullets because you decided to smash a wolf _against his own bike_ right outside a coach party full of 'em was a real atrocious way to get us to the top o' the game, but then, maybe I just ain't ambitious enough! Maybe your idea o' the 'top o' the game' is _heaven!_ "

"There y'go again!" Razor said, having now joined the fennec in the passenger seat, slamming the door closed. "Y'see, that's yo' problem! You got _no respect_ for pred culture! Y'all just some sad, fragile li'l shell with zero ambition!"

"I ain't got zero ambition! Raze, I got ambition comin' outta my ass!" Finnick pointed a thumb backwards, indicating said body part. "The difference is I got reasonable, calm ambition, while _you_ have got poorly-thought-out, get-yo'-ass-killed-in-ten-seconds-flat ambition!"

"You got ambition, huh?" Razor folded his arms, nodding like a mocking bobblehead toy. "Yeah, I guess ya do; explains why ya feel the need to act all holier-than-thou, thinkin' yo' midget ass is somehow superior to all us lowlife, bottom-feedin' scumbags from the streets!"

"Oh, for the love o' Renard… so not only are you delusional, you're also a goddamn hypocrite." Finnick sighed and looked down, clenching the steering wheel tight to relieve stress. "I can't believe I'm hearin' this… an' after everythin' I did for you! I found you a place to live while _I'm_ still livin' in this van, I found you a job, _and_ I let you borrow all my Vulpes Inculta CDs – which I still ain't got back, by the way! An' I did all this so you wouldn't go off an' get yourself killed tryin' to rob a police officers' convention with nothin' but fake claws an' colourful language!"

"Yeah, well y'know what? I'd _rather_ go back to Verdant Corrals than keep workin' for that musty ass-clown at those rates! I _deserve_ more respect for what I do! It's what I was promised, pred!"

"Well, I don't want yo' ass to go back to jail, 'cause in all likelihood you'd drag _my_ ass back in with y'all, given half a chance. So with that option ruled out, what do _you_ suggest we do, if you're so freakin' dead-set on gettin' us to the top o' the game?"

Razor paused to unfold his arms. He fidgeted and he somewhat exaggeratedly looked around in all directions, even sticking his head out the open passenger window to check if anyone was there. Struggling to pull his head back inside without disturbing his trademark fox hat, he soon leaned in towards Finnick.

"The Primal Jazz formula, Pred," he whispered. "Screw Minsko, screw Antonov, screw all of 'em; we should take it for ourselves an' sell it to the highest bidder!"

Finnick's ears flattened once more and he looked straight ahead, pursing his lip.

" _No._ "

"Aww, come oooooon! Really?!" Razor lamented, slapping his hooves against the dashboard.

" _I'm not screwin' 'em over_ ," Finnick said, not moving a muscle. "You know what Minsko does to traitors. He don't shoot them an' drag them to his savage honey badger, he just gives 'em to Small Fry. Y'know why they call him that?" he asked, finally turning to face him, "I'll give you a clue. It ain't got nothin' to do with his height, or the fact that he sometimes carries around a fryin' pan. Just think o' what a fryin' pan is typically _used for_ , an' you'll have the right idea!"

Finnick couldn't help but sigh once more as he noticed Razor pause, his eyes wide, as he gave his rationalisation some thought; he even seemed to wince upon digging deep enough with what limited imagination he had, but soon enough, he was at it again. "Don't be such a freakin' pessimist, pred! We could pull it off, no problem! It's only cheatin' if you get caught, right?"

"The answer is _NO!"_ Finnick belted out again, slapping his own paws against the steering wheel. It was at that moment that he noticed a few cuts on one of his palms, from which he could see tiny streams of blood – obviously caused by his claws, and worsened by gripping the steering wheel so hard. He found himself wincing at the sight, but he tried to brush it off; literally, wiping his paw against his driver's seat.

"Well…" Razor began to say, "fine, then, I'll just rob 'em myself! I'll keep all the riches for myself, an' you won't get jack squat!"

Finnick chuckled, shaking his head yet again. "If you wanna try it yourself, go right ahead. I've seen how tight they locked the place down; you'll never pull it off without a small mammal to help, an' good luck findin' one o' those! That is, if you can even be assed to hail a taxi an' walk inside yourself, 'cause I ain't givin' you a lift again, neither!"

"You _know_ I'll do it, pred! Not like some midget gekkerer would be o' much help to me, anyways! An' if I get caught, I'll… I'll tell 'em you put me up to it!" Razor said, pointing almost right in Finnick's eye. "An' then we _both_ get fried!"

Finnick turned back to give a retort, but was forced to stop with his mouth hanging open as a rather uncomfortable realisation set in. Minsko is a rational mammal; he's all about business. Cares more about business than he does the mammals _in_ the business, including himself. If it makes money, it stays. If it's a liability, it's gotta go. Finnick himself hadn't been a liability… yet. But Razor was about to make himself one.

Finnick turned back to the steering wheel, softly hitting his head against the thankfully-broken horn repeatedly.

This was his fault and he knew it. _He_ was the one who got Razor into the organisation. That meant Razor was _his_ responsibility. Razor's bad decisions were _his_ bad decisions. If Razor made himself a liability, then Finnick would also become a liability, because he'd just demonstrated he'd let someone like Razor into the organisation in the first place. And the worst part was, it seemed that Razor had just figured this out. He now _knew_ he could do whatever he damn well pleased because Finnick was _obligated_ to bail him out of trouble. And there was nothing he could do about it, except perhaps shooting him. But even if that wouldn't change the fact that he'd be exposed as a liability _anyway_ , he didn't stab his partners in the back, he didn't leave them to die, and he certainly wasn't a hitmammal. He'd turned his back on that sort of business a long time ago.

The small fox groaned, rapidly punching the steering wheel now. "Alright _, alright!_ " he finally relented, pushing himself off. He sighed; he'd just come up with a plan to hopefully curtail the damage that Razor might cause, but knowing it had a limited chance of success, he slowly shook his head.

"Now… just to be clear, I still don't wanna screw Minsko over, for reasons I've already explained. If I help you steal that formula, you have to _promise_ that you'll give it to Minsko immediately afterwards! Trust me on this; if we got the formula for him before anyone else did, he'd _at least_ give us a pay rise. It's a better option for both of us in the long term, an' more importantly, if we screw it up, we might at least be able to salvage our lives from it!"

Not even Finnick could stop himself from leaning forward in anticipation, his ears and tail twitching slightly. Razor had leaned back and began to brush his chin for a painfully long time; Finnick's big ears could practically hear the wheels in his head turning.

Finally, he shrugged. "Okay, fine, ya got me. Deal."

* * *

 _So yeah, this one took me a while. I really wanted to avoid exceeding the 15k+ word length of the last chapter, so I ended up cutting large parts of it. As a result, what was originally the entire second half of this chapter will now become its own chapter. That chapter will also feature much more Duke, too, and hopefully it won't take as long since I've already written up a few sections._

 _Incidentally, today marks a year and a day since I first saw Zootopia in theatres! I originally wanted to post on that actual anniversary, 22nd April, but, well... I've probably not built up a reputation for sticking to promised schedules by this point. :/_


End file.
